In Italics

I put down my book, look at it once more cos I always feel like it is asking me to spend some more time with it. My eyes roll and rest on the pillow next to me. I let myself be led to sleep.

As my head finds solace in the comfort of the pillow, I drift. I can hear the soft sound of the rain outside, a slight drizzle and then a little, slender downpour — like the sound of a pressure cooker, just before it whistles.

I can hear the noise down below, cars honking, autos accelerating, fueled by curses of another victim of inflation. My ears strain to listen to a song from the comp in the adjoining room, I satisfy myself with just the faint murmur of the drums.

And then I let my dream take over. It takes me back in time. Sometimes I feel, I dream just what I want to dream, like its a conscious process, like I am taking myself back to that happy place, to nice beginnings, to that space within me where I truly want to be. To a place that gives me joy.

And to a place where its just you and me and no one else. There is silence and an unsettling din, all too calm and yet chaotic, all too static and yet somehow, the world is in motion. Yes, its just You and Me.

I feel like I am walking with you, holding hands on your favorite lane, brimming with trees, beautiful darkness, broken by golden glints from the streetlights and that soothing breeze that whispers softly, but lucidly, that you belong to me. I smile.

I smile at what I feel for you, content with the fact that you feel the same for me, so what if we don't get to talk, so what if we don't get to express and, really, so what if we, sometimes bow down to circumstances — as long as we don't let the feeling die a natural death, in the process.

I wake up, half-dreaming, half sensing reality, half-wanting to go back to sleep, but in entirety wanting to be with you.

And I float in the happiness, of what I become when I am with you.

Its weird how a dream can make you forget the insecurity, the need for reassurance, the fact that one day we would stop feeling, the fact that you might not belong to me. An entire existence in that one moment.

And then, I wonder how it will be without you.

Will I have the faith to dream again?

As unsure as the 'I' in 'Italics.'