1.
“Are you happy?”

I have been asking her this a lot of late. I haven’t been seeing her much; do best friends have to? Perhaps. She tells me each time that she is, and I’m surprised each time. I would have been lonely but perhaps she is less needy than me. Perhaps despite her burdens she manages to rise above it all. She is a good person but…

“We’re drifting apart, aren’t we?”

And she pauses. But the look in her eyes tells me enough. We know it.

“You’re more like an acquaintance these days.”

And that word, that word hurts, slices like something sharp and hot, but it’s not untrue.

“I hardly see you anymore and when I do, you won’t tell me why you are happy or angry or grumpy. That’s what I meant when I said you’re like an acquaintance.”

And the biggest shock of all, once the initial stab subsides, I realise that it’s okay. We’re both okay with this. Friends do drift apart. Lives change, as do priorities. Paths diverge. We can still smile and laugh, that counts for something. This is someone I’ve counselled through her grief and her dramas, someone who rushed me to the emergency ward the last time I had a hyperventillation attack.

But. There it is. No sadness. Just an acknowledgement we’re moving on. It’s okay.

2.
We flirt like peacocks. Crazy, dirty, unabashedly. Our better halves tolerate this, generous to a fault. We’re like two sides of a trick coin. It’s easy, when you’ve found your twin finally. It’s all about the attention, really, isn’t it always? We want to be considered, whatever shape it may take.

But there’s more. She listens to the crap I dump on her nearly every day. Friends say I think too much, that I take things too seriously, and they are right, but it don’t change a thing. I’ll always be this way, I realise this finally, though I may temper my intensity, I’ll always jump further than is necessary. I don’t see the future but I sure I don’t mind talking it to death.

It’s like someone older and wiser and who’s exactly like you except she’s not and I do need someone to tell me I’m not mad to think, to want, to feel all these things. Someone who tells me I’m a good person, for all my nonsense and all my failings. Someone who reminds me that I do bring light into others’ lives even when all I can see is the darkness that blinds me.

One fine day, if ever I’m so lucky, she’ll bear witness for me. Who better? She’s been there for me, for us, almost since day one. Hell, even now, she’s my witness.

But till that day comes, we’ll continue to flirt like wild hares and drive all the boys and girls around us insane. Hee hee.

3.
They look like a vision of perfect love. The way they speak to each other, more than just endearments but with gladness from deep within their hearts; the way they surround themselves with friends made family; the way they enjoy every thing around them as if they know that it’s not whether these things last, but to live it before it is past.

Seeing them fill me with warmth, some measure of healthy envy, respect and admiration, but above all, hope. This is possible. We can have it too. After our own fashion perhaps, a different animal in the end perhaps, an eternity to get there perhaps, but I believe we will get there.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. In my heart I know this, too, is a love song.

4.
I tell you I love you. You demand, in jest, “Prove it, prove it.”

And this is a request I take most seriously though I have no clue on how to get started. In my heart, I know you do so much more for me after all, that you have to sacrifice so much more, that you have more to lose. Yet, how do I match that when love isn’t about keeping scores?

And words are so easy even when they are so hard. I have never found it so difficult before to write, when nothing comes close to this wretched wrenching I can’t ignore, that tells me I’m alive, I’m consumed by passion and joy, that makes me feel grateful even when I cry. Words can’t prove nothing. Promises too often turn out to be quick, brief and empty.

You call me a romantic; it must be that I act like a fool, for all the grand schemes and madness I concoct, I know they aren’t really what I need to do. Fancy, yes, but they’d hardly feed us when the doubts and fears and little hurts creep on us, and we know they will, we know they do.

I remember writing you once, when I was shaken and unsure, and I told you how I knew. Like that Tori Amos song, I said I loved you more than the sun and the stars and the moon. And there was no way to prove it really, nothing beyond a promise, that I would swear on my steadfastnesss, that I will stand by you through all the crap that may come our way. I asked you to choose me as someone who will work hard with you to make this work cos we both want it badly enough. Choose me as the one who will love you for real and love you for good; I’ll not turn back.

Later, naturally, I got worried you’d read it differently, that I’m being pushy, that I’m asking for too much too fast. (See? This is what I mean, overthinking is second nature to me.) I half-regretted saying those things, and half-wished I had just kept them to myself. (Surely that is enough?) Yet also, I knew I’d say it again in a heartbeat.

There is no choice, really. There’s no turning back. I’m a fool and I’m a romantic. I think too much and all I have are words. There’s no choice, really, cos in your own way, I know now you’ve already chosen me, as best you can. And I’ll take this on your terms. I, too, have made this choice. I made it before I even knew I did. Even if we can’t ever have more, trust me, it ain’t no consolation. Baby, it’s everything. I couldn’t ask for more.

I love you. I can’t prove it really, though I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. All I can say, all I can mean, all I can do is this: I’m with you, baby, I’m with you.