For now she knows

By Khawla Zainab

Even as the sudden idea of leaving forever and not returning felt good, it didn’t bring the complete sway of relief that she longed to soar away with. She had heard often enough of the feeling called liberation except now she waited for her definition of it.

It had been terrific, she had been happy. She did things and they knew who it was for. Words were abundant, even though she could have done without them.  He was beyond the representation of a handsome saviour and she fit into his world like a dream. It was so close to perfect, she had never had the time to decide what she’d do if it stopped making sense someday. It was just not imminent. And when exactly did this happen? Was it when she had stopped waiting for him? Or that one time when she asked him to let her be? Or was the cognizance of her weakening conviction for everything she had once stood for, the tipping point? When did he cease to be the liberator and became everything except that?

She didn’t pretend to know the answers. 

The uncertainty of the first few days, the deliriousness she would experience each time he was around, the efforts she would go through for looking perfect, and all these thoughts made her double up with resentment. Her mind kept replaying for her the times she would unthinkingly dismiss every other plan to sit and just endlessly think about him. He loved her and she knew that alright. He would every now and then appreciate her a little less but he knew how to more than make up for it when he eventually did. He kept her preoccupied. He made her care less about every other thing she had previously been engaged with. And slowly he became everything. He became what defined her and her life. . It wasn’t so much about who or how he was as it were about what he had altered her to become.

It somehow didn’t seem right anymore. Was it actually that beautiful before or had she been blinded by love, as they say.

Leaving would mean she didn’t have the courage to face things she had forged herself. To let something grow infinitely and provide for every tad of its creation only to turn around and find a tumour. An inane growth fashioned with pointless memories and unworthy sacrifices. Two faces of a coin? Or that plants rot with over sprinkling of water?

Excess of everything? Harmful. Who didn’t know that? But the simplest of things elude us when we need wisdom the most. Not too long ago, she had mistook it to be a galactic occurrence, for its not every day that two wandering souls fit into each other with a clank loud enough for the heads to turn and marvel at the aura, the beauty and the sheer electricity. She was too dazzled to notice others. She was too elated to know what she knew now; the world was full of people like her. And now she stood gobsmacked at a distance to despairingly watch her thunder stolen. She, for the want of her dignity, would put up an impervious, unrattled front for God knows how long. But, need I tell you that there's really no ground beneath her feet?