Before the Storm
Do you know what whirlwinds are? Yes,
you do. Remember our romance? That was a
whirlwind. You rushed into my life pushing off everyone and everything that had
made up my life before you. I was a force to reckon with, you said. And you
said that a lot. As compliments sometimes, but at other times I heard an
accusation in the slight quivering of your voice. You were the calm to my
storm, anchoring me to you. To the rest of the world. You feared I would blow
away in my own storm. That I’d be reduced to a shipwreck if a captain didn’t
take the helm.
You were that captain. O Captain! My
Captain! You said often that I was either worth of a hurricane or a calm. Nothing
in between would do for me. All I knew was rampage and all you understood was
serenity. Opposites attract and I guess that’s what held us together. But not
for long you see. We each ran through the other’s life leaving a
storm-scattered raft adrift, detritus trailing us in our wake. We left each
other parched and famished. And broken at the seams. Wounded yet healed. Burning
and freezing. Merely held together with the debris that swirled around us. But
never judging.
Then our fearful trip was done. Hurricanes,
though capable of generating surges, typically weaken rapidly when cut off from
their primary energy source. Did you know that? You must have. You had to. What
else defines your walking out? Of taking away my wind? I was a little too much
for you, was I? Why didn’t you engulf the storm within the eye?
I tried. I willed us to fuse. You be
the hurricane and I the calm. Did that chase you away? The force with which I came?
I remember, you had to prise me apart, one limb after another. Accept it, the
hurricane never scared you. You were the calm that the storm feared. You were the
eye that deflated the hurricane.
You were ….. I was ….. We were ….. Before
the storm ….
© Jonali Karmakar
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