BAGALAMUKHI

After a long time a calm has settled over me- one that belies a resolution of conflicts that have terrorized me for years. As I stare into the embers of the dying flames in the fireplace, my mind wanders to a time long past, a man I used to think I knew. Well enough to trust my soul with but he turned out to be a reaper of hearts and beliefs Dressed in black with his long hairs loose and tucked behind his ears, his face expressionless and still revealing everything he looked like reincarnation of Indra. I’ll never know if I had imagined the crinkling of his skin when he found something to be humorous or the upward slant of his lips when he was happy. What is true and what was faux? I used to think a lot about that in the beginning, now I have learnt to forget. But it creeps up sometimes like a broken stream finding a way through the creaks and breaks in the wall.

He is my biggest glory and my biggest shame. Self -hatred came easily to me even before ‘us’ but he broke something inside me that no amount of care, anger or love ever fixed. Since him I have lived a half life, a secure happy one but broken, almost torn between what came easy- depression and what I had to fight against to stay sane. I never loved again, cared yes even found it in myself to adore. Excuses like fear and self- protection have been given various times by my mind but my heart never lied. It knew that after a soul mate anything else is always less, even if it is better. Unfortunately, love doesn’t discriminate, it just is! ! It doesn’t see that the man you’re falling for is less than you, a bastard or a kind affectionate man. Eventually, character may or may not matter. Who knows when and what leads to love. Personally sometimes I feel that his seduction played a part but I also know I was a willing participant too enchanted to care about being duped. Sometimes I pray that the veil of deceit had never been lifted- I could have remained naive and innocent. But that is not to be.

Many years have passed and I am going to die in a few hours, will finally fall asleep without having to worry about who ill wake with early morning screams of fear and pain that in my unconscious state I have never been able to suppress. How ironic…. even on my deathbed I remember the one man I loved and despised…the one man who engulfed, broke and remodeled my entire living.