The Lost Prisoner

Ipsita dwells on lost love in this ballad, a prose-poem and a poetic open letter to the protagonist’s lover. She portrays her pain of separation, and intense agony, exclusively for Different Truths. 

Somewhere…
Between your mountaintop
And my seashore dreams
Between your shadow
And my abyss
Between the play of light
And darkness
Between the thousand buzzes
That continuously fill our lives…

Somewhere…
Within your raw wounded heart
And the incessant hammering in my head
Somewhere ..
Within your lost offspring
And my unborn child
Somewhere
Within what Should
And Should not be…

We found ourselves
Between love

And within it…
Like a deep bleeding cut,
That threatens to overflow…
But also,
Like a young gurgling spring
That heals…
That heals us both

And You
Throb in my thoughts,
In my touch,
In my heart
In the cells of my being…

This then is it,
This moment hung in time…
Nothing backward
Nor forward
Nor wayward .

We live a thousand lives over
In this one moment
Savouring it
Between and Within us

We roll it over
This love
In our minds
Beyond our mountaintop
And seashore dreams…

Even
As we know that this throb
This touch
This Life
Is ephemeral

And You will go up in your cigarette smoke
And I will drown in my diet coke…

Dear Love,

Just a couple of months ago, I met a beautiful soul and consequently fell in love , headlong, neck deep… totally…madly…truly!
I loved you from a space, which in my mind, didn’t exist anymore.
I thought that life’s tempests had washed that space away.
I never realised that there was so much tenderness still stacked away somewhere deep within me.
A space that you had reached.
I was very vulnerable then.
And you reached out to me, and somehow made me believe that it was still ok.
That it ok to be tender …
Ok to be vulnerable …
Ok to want to be taken care off.
You promised me hope.
You promised to be there. And for a while you acted on your promise.
I slowly started letting down my guard.
You showed me Love.
And bit by cautious bit I reciprocated.

And then came a realisation.
Slowly, day by day…an uncomfortable realisation…
That you were caught in a situation which you didn’t know how to control.
It made me sad. I wanted the regular stuff from you. To go out for a cup of coffee, to watch a movie, Simple things.
I mean you don’t have to even be in love to have a cup of coffee together do you?
And you were single.
And I was single.
And I wanted to spend time with you.
And that’s when it dawned upon me that things were really irregular, you were controlled beyond measure.
It pained me…
And since I didn’t see you want to do much about it, I thought I would be decent, and say goodbye.
I didn’t want to cause either of us pain
I didn’t want you to feel pulled in different directions.

You know, I had connected to the soul that was you when you were growing up. Every night, at the end of our day, we would talk, sharing our lives.
And you would tell me about how you grew up, in your native town, far away from the city , how you conquered your fears, how you roamed free…
There was music in your soul then, speed in your essence.
There was kindness too.
The ability to stand up for others, to take care of things, to give yourself to do good to others.
Within your growing up stories, I found a young guy with a clean heart , a head full of dreams and conviction.

So, quite by chance, when I got to visit your beautiful home state, your beloved native town , although you were not there, I found your essence everywhere.
I was just a weekend tourist there… but the place was your home… and became special to me.
We spoke continuously over the phone those three days, sharing sunrise and sunset over your riverbank forest, immersed in it , seeing it through your eyes and sharing it back with you
And yet
The morning after I came back from your native town , and for the first time you did not answer my call, you had kept your phone switched off , although you knew I would call…
I felt deeply hurt.
The first time I realised that perhaps I wasn’t as special to you as you had become to me.

In spite of the fact that you would often be hot headed and lose your cool , I loved you so much that I set my ego aside , each time, call you back, pamper and pacify you, till you were calm again
When you truly love someone, why should there be ego, in between them?
And yet…you never felt the need to pacify me when I was upset, or pamper me…
Was I not that special to you , the way you were special to me?

Life moved on.
And you remained where you were.
Happy that you had me to love you, pamper you, be tender to you, and yet you remained happily embroiled, never ever bothering to think that I too was a battered human being in many ways. I too needed to get back a bit of the pampering tenderness that I gave to you.
It didn’t come to you to love me that way

But I was deeply in love with you.
I didn’t proclaim love from the beginning like you did.
But I loved you with my entire being.

Things came to a head. I knew I needed a direction and there was none.
And a month or so later, I wrote you a long letter saying goodbye
Your state of being perpetually controlled by someone else was difficult for both of us. It wasn’t like me to love in secrecy and that is what you asked of me…
Much as I loved you, I thought it was only right to say goodbye. It was the honourable thing.
And yet you said you didn’t want to let me go.
You asked to give “us” time..
And that time will sort things out.
You said I was your breath of fresh air in an otherwise dreary life in which you were caught up.
In me you saw hope.
I loved you too much and by then I needed your presence in my life , even if it were merely over the internet.
Your good morning calls, our small little message exchanges during the day and our video calls to share the day, every night made my world complete in a way that I had always wanted, albeit it was all virtual, across the messenger screen and I wanted the real thing.
I trusted you.
I stayed on.
I stayed on with an even more firm resolution to be there for you, against odds.

Strangely it was then that you started your winding up process.
You stopped the calls at night.
Fully knowing that I couldn’t sleep without speaking to you.
I would lie awake all night expecting your call.
And even when I fell asleep, I would wake up every hour, waiting for you.
If I asked you why you weren’t calling you would turn rude and say I was complaining.
I tried explaining to you that we needed to talk about the little problems and fix them if we wanted to keep a relationship going .
Otherwise these little problems pile up into insurmountable mountainous heaps.
I carried on.
Soon our daytime messages shrunk.
You wouldn’t read them
You wouldn’t respond.
And yet if I asked you why, you would say I was complaining.
With our nightly exchanges and daytime messages gone, so did our sharing of each other’s lives.
And yet
Every time, each and every time I was serious about saying goodbye , you would sense it.. and apologise and assure me of your love.

And I loved you
So much, so completely that I trusted you.
I loved you with my whole being.
But what was I to you?
Just a body to be enjoyed when you could sneak away for half an hour , sometimes?
But buddy, why did you want exclusive commitment from me then?
Why did you want me to be yours?
You were in your so called situation.
Yet you wanted me to be there for you.
Only you.
Don’t you know that there is no exclusivity clause for mere transactional needs?

You withdrew.
First the video calls at night.
The you stopped messaging during the day.
And finally the good morning messages stopped
And even while you did this step by step, you kept saying you were busy, but you loved me.
And you needed me in your life.

What love is this?
Love has a bare minimum need of staying connected .
Love has a need of finding out how our loved one is doing…
Is She alright?
Is she doing okay?
What is She doing?
Is She sad?
Oh Why?
Can I help her?
Love has a basic need of being there for your loved one…
Where is that need in you for me?

Where is that person who declared to his family that he would stand beside a married woman with a child and would marry only her.
Where is the person who had the guts to be there for this other woman’s wellbeing?
That young guy of 25~ 26 was the guy I knew in you.
Where is he 20 years later?

20 years later, the married woman is still married to her husband . She lives in a house that belongs to her husband’s family, although her husband stays away from her. But she stays firmly put, not that she can’t afford her own life. Yet she is firmly set in her husband’s house choosing to stay with her husband’s mother and their son, holding on to his name. All this even though she had a flourishing business of her own and is financially extremely well off by her own rights.
Yet she enjoys it all. Her husband’s identity, her own business and her complete control over you.

And you stay two houses away from her , partnering her in her business, once her ace employee , elevated now to her business partner who is at her constant back and call.
With no liberties of your own.
No concept of space , where everything you do , everyone you meet, every action of yours has to be scanned by her.
Whether it is a business meeting or grocery shopping or even the freedom of keeping your own car keys with yourself.
Where you are afraid to go for a walk or a drive without her approval or have a cup of coffee with a friend she may not approve of.
Your life over the years has been styled by her.
You are afraid to break that control.
For when you did try to break away depending on another relationship to do so, it had failed you.
She reached back for you and you gave in
You are used to your circumstance now

And yet, You constantly seek respite, outside her line of control, by trying to find “friends” over internet.
Wooing them, Charming them.
A breather from your controlled life.
So far, so good.
Why proclaim love to me?

You tell me you have work stress.
I ask you regularly about your fluctuating BP?
About why you can’t quit smoking 40 cigarettes a day and also smoking weed on top of your fluctuating Blood Pressure.
I plead you to get medical attention.
You brush me aside saying you will ..
You never ask me how I am doing
You never feel the need to know.

I tell you that even if you are busy, just drop a message. That much your circumstance does allow you.
It’s not that I am free.
I too am running around in ten directions trying to face my daily challenges at work
But You too are a part of my life.
Isn’t that the basics of love and commitment?

Since you said you were busy, I thought that I would keep in touch.
Hence I messaged
Hence I called.
I connected because I felt the need to connect with the person I love.
But every time I called you the phone was busy
I don’t really know if you were busy on the phone charming other women at night, or if you were talking to your sister or childhood buddy.
Frankly I didn’t care.
The fact is you didn’t feel the need to be connected with me.
The fact is you wouldn’t even call me back
In spite of proclaiming love, despite of declaring me family.

Commitment has this very important aspect of being there for each other. On one hand it’s about loyalty … on another hand it’s about the space that you give the other in your life.

Have you stayed committed to me?
Have you strayed?
Do you make commitments without meaning them?
I don’t know.
But I know that you haven’t been there for me.
You haven’t given me space in your life..
Whatever little space you have given me in the virtual context is gone now

I do know that you stay straight with abuse.
In your own words you have told me that.
That you have been subjected to abusive behaviour both emotional and verbal, and you fear questioning or crossing it. Hence you stay tamed by “Her”
But that is a disastrous method to keep a relationship going.
Once you get used to abuse you start justifying it…
And then you will live in it.
And become abusive in process to others.
Only be subservient to the master.
And take it out on others.

I can only love you.
Wholeheartedly
Truly
Honestly.
This was not the exuberant love of youth.
This was not the part time love of a lady well established and matured in worldly ways.
This was tenderness.
This was taking care of you and wanting to be taken care by you.
This was commitment.
This was love , my love from my forgotten space.
You opened up a wound .
A raw wound
And hurt it some more.

I am writing to you because I believe in human dignity.
Because withdrawal bit by bit is tortuous.
It confuses you.
And it is dishonest.
Mature human beings discuss
They don’t withdraw just like that
The least one has a right to is an explanation, a dialogue, a conversation…and an honest one at that.
So long as I stay committed to you I will feel the need to reach out to you… to know if you are doing ok, if you have eaten, how you are feeling and so much more. But my messages remain unread or not responded to.
My phone calls go unanswered or you are busy speaking elsewhere.
And you do not even call back.
And so long as I am committed, I will expect to hear from you. Expect to be needed by you.
And yet I find myself desperately lonely in that commitment.
Although you verbally say you love me, your actions are deceptive.
But Why do you deceive ?
And in reality who do you deceive?
What insecurity stops you from being open to yourself or to me or to her?
Are you not deceiving yourself?

The question is
Where is the soul I fell in love with?
You once said that you were caught in a storm and covered in dust.
Allowing yourself to be trapped in the maelstrom of ambitions and caught up in a make believe shroud of glamour,
Why have you chosen to remain snared in the dust storm.
Where is the beautiful free soul of your youth gone?
Why have you allowed yourself to lose yourself.
Where have you lost your soul?

The Prisoner

And, If I met you then,

When your soul soared high
And you could still stand tall on faith,
What if I met you then?

When you were free of lies.
That you have held on to
And made them your lifeline,
What if I met you then?

When dubious duplicity
Was what you deplored…
And deception still hadn’t enslaved you,
What if I met you then?

Your soul today is imprisoned
Ensnared, and in shackles
At the beck and call
Of a power that you cannot be free of…

You nurse a rotting heart
That beats love
And yet
You chose to drown it out in toxic haze
Or Marijuana and cigarette laced anger

Just so
You don’t see
You don’t feel
You don’t cry
For yourself

And I
Watch you helplessly
As you cut me up in tiny pieces
And throw me away
Not that you don’t care,
But Truth is beyond you now

Wouldn’t it have been bliss
If We had met
Then, when we could be
Free to be ourselves
Free to be in love
And live in harmony

Yet
I reach out
For your entrapped love
And your fettered soul
Still beating
Still swirling
Still gushing
Within your rotting heart
In the prison of your life.

Break free, my love
For your soul is precious
Break free of the shackles
Of undignified bondage
So beneath
The truth that once was you.
Break out in love
Break out in the beauty of your being.

Will you ever find to the beauty of your being again?

Yours,

A question mark

Photo from the Internet