Lovelore: A Tale Stitched By The Heart
Beneath the silvery glow of the moon, and the tender, caressing gaze of the stars, his face shone with brilliant radiance. My face was painted with awe looking at how mesmerizing he was. The cold yet comforting breeze gently stroked our weary hearts. The sounds of the ocean intertwined with the calm depth of his voice lulled me into deeper peace. The persistent yet gentle feel of his skin on mine ignited tiny sparks within me. I can see him blushing, Ah! What a beautiful shade of red, the one I would forever love!
We were listening to our favourite songs, singing along in the dark night and the world around us disappeared. You broke down the walls I struggled so hard to build and traced constellations across my cracked heart. You showed me a version of myself I never knew existed.
Midnight drives with the wind brushing past us gently, his silhouette so achingly pretty under the moonlight. We would go to the wildest places, talk about everything and nothing, having the time of our lives. We danced under the hazy street lights, laughter spilling into the dreary night. At last we captured our pictures that we had postponed for so long, sealing our laughter for eternity.
The first time I ever wore a saree, your eyes lit up like fireflies, wonder shimmering across your face. You whispered how breathtaking I looked, and for a moment the world fell silent. He was every inch the gentleman, kind and patient, and I knew then, there was no one else I would ever want beside me.
Everything felt like a dream, so enchanting, so unreal, that I never wanted to wake up from it. In that dream, we belonged. In that dream, you were mine. And I was yours. But as the sun came up, the light shattered all of my midsummer night’s dreams, leaving me broken and scarred and clutching to the fragments of our love unreal. But like a castle built on sand, the illusion was too delicate to hold onto. What was once magic became madness, a fever dream, the kind that leaves you drenched in confusion, begging to wake up but unable to escape. Only left with hazy memories that blur the lines between love and loss.
In the crowds, my eyes search for yours, aching to know if you dreamed of me too. But when I see you smiling and laughing the same way you did with me, with another girl, it crushes my glass heart, shards cutting deeper with every thought of you. Each breath feels borrowed, heavy with ache. It drags me back to the damn reality that you aren’t mine. That you were never mine. Every moment I treasured was just fleeting to you.
All the coincidences that once felt like fate now feel like cruel tricks. Am I the only one imagining us in a romantic song? Am I the only one dreaming of us beneath the stars? Am I the only one staying up late, imagining our future, when there was never even an ‘us’ to begin with…
Is it all just in my head? I don’t know what to feel anymore, whether to hate him for being so careless with me, forgive him for never noticing me, or love him because that’s the only thing I can do. Or pretend he doesn’t exist? But he does. He matters every damn day. He breaks me with the smallest things. And I am terrified to find that I am not even a flickering star, not even a shadow that lingers in the vast universe of his mind.
I am scared of the day your eyes no longer pause on me, when they glance past as if I were invisible. Just a blur in the crowd. I fear the cruel and numbing silence of becoming strangers yet again.
And yet… even as reality tears me apart, a part of me still wanders back to that dream- back to us holding hands on the rooftop, laughing at nothing, staring at the stars. Just us. Just once more.
It’s only a dream. I know that. But it’s the kind I keep returning to, even knowing I will wake up shattered every time.