What I Saw While You Slept



It was a drowsy afternoon you couldn’t fight off.  Humidity hung heavy in the air, and the whirring fans and the droning TV tugs at your eyelids. Sleep beckoned and you followed. That’s how it started.

I’m still thinking how it felt as I watched you sleep --- a beast tried to claw its way out from within the depths of me. It felt as if I was a priestess in a temple of some old forgotten god, and I was about to lay down a sacrifice at the foot of your altar. It felt like a winged creature which has slept for ages inside a silver cage, has stirred and fluttered and now struggles to get out. It felt big and terrifying but beautiful too. It felt like love.

Your face was both new and old to me; the texture of your cheek with the 5 o’clock shadow both velvety and rough. Without warning, I was caught in a time intersect, when I could see both now and tomorrow and the story in between. 

I saw another evening in a time far away, where I watch you sleep. You look exhausted, probably after a day just like today. There may be kids, or none. There may be money or just enough. But I understood that all I need from now on is to see you beside me, watching you sleep, and I will be content. 

I have lost so much. I have faced herculean sorrow and despair. It made me terrified of having something or someone I can lose again. But when you reached out for me, searching for my hand even as you dream, I am filled with resolution. 

When you awoke, and caught me watching you, I gave you some flimsy excuse of some lame decision I have made. But the underlying truth is that, I have decided to wake up. I will do what it takes to keep you happy, to protect you, to buoy you up. I will put Amazonian women to shame because of what I can do. And even if having you means I am exposed to the risk of losing you, I shall bear it, like I have borne it before for people who are as important as you are to me now.  The only difference is, I didn’t get to choose them. But I choose you. 

I could do it. I know this because -
I saw the most riveting and fascinating future unfurl, as I watched you sleep.

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