You and I: The poetry with

A piece I had written earlier for Prathibimb in 2010.

A celebration of love for another, the heart-warming desire for another body and the discovery of the ‘I’ through the ‘you’. Sometimes love, in its ever-intriguing physical and bodily form, is the most palpable and understandable of feelings. 

I looked into your eye. I am. Just the way I am. Your eyes looking at me. You are. You are the most beautiful being I’ve seen. I see your eye sty, your blackheads, your acne, your dimple, your stubble, your ear, your eyebrows, your marks, your hair, your skin, your contours, your body. Your glance. You looking back at me, reminding me that I am. 

As I look at you, I realize my own opacity. Who am I? Who am I but in relation to you? I am me for you. As I am with you, I am not the same person I was, before I was with you. I am a mystery to myself as much as you are a mystery to me. The more I want to know you and lift your veil of mystery, the more I am aware of our distance.

Who is this life behind this body? The person behind this skin. I look at you with wonder. I experience the beauty of your body. Where are you? Where in your body are you? My arms are wrapped around your body as we sit on the couch. I feel the warmth and the touch of your body against mine. Our touch reminds me that I am on you and you are under me. Yet, where are you? Who are you?

This moment of being with you inebriates me. I feel charged by the grandeur of your body. You overwhelm me and I am blinded by you. I long to be within you and lost in you, so that we are not you and I, but we, where both, you and I, are not two entities, but one. Yet I know that it cannot be, because you are and I am. We are separated by the exterior of our skins, whose impermeability refuses to climax into the fusion of ourselves. We will be distinct, no matter how much we desire to lose ourselves with each other. We are in this moment, where time converges on the now. If only we could be this way, eternity would be a moment. Together we would be lost in the comfort and bliss of each other. 

And yet, as we are together, I sense that I am all alone. As I look into your eye, I see you are not here. The feel of your touch seems distant. Probably, you do not feel the same way as I do. Probably, you are in a moment and time so far away from now. And yet, for me, this moment is beautiful. I am thankful that my life was a prelude to this moment, where we are, just this way. You and I.