I saw you falling into the black abyss, and I reached out frantically to grab you. You and I had a lot in common. We were both victims of the blood-thirsty, power-hungry materialistic animals who continued vying for each others' blood in a relentless quest for power--the very power that had ripped the society into fragments of space and that had shattered every dream that nestled under the skeins of silky protection like mirrors being splintered into shards.
We shared the yearning to run away from the power-hungry maniacs, to break free from the manacles of morality so carefully chalked by the ones who believed themselves to be the quintessential elements of the existence of the universe. We shared the book of right and wrong, which we had mentally written for ourselves in the little space we kept for ourselves. We shared the desire to jump into the black chasm of cold darkness to escape the wounds that the words cut into tenderness, the tenderness that I could comprehend so well...
Your words of wisdom continue to echo in my head, and they echoed when I clawed to breathe under the cold suffocating waters of ire, of negativity, of mirthless laughter, of animosity that somehow converted sweet redolence into the rancid odor of hatred, of sardonic bitterness that wrenched my heart.
Your brown eyes gave me the strength to hold onto the flimsy thread that bound the fragile bits together.
When I saw you falling into the black abyss, I reached out, and grabbed you. I didn't want you to fall, because somehow, somewhere, I cared. I didn't feel for you, not for an instant, perhaps because all the pain had numbed me, and had made me immune to feelings of love and passion. The surge of emotions had been broken long back by needles that left scars unhealed. But the humanity, the compassion was strengthened. I cared, I realized that I did, and I fought to catch you, fought against forces that exhausted me, that drained me, sapped me off energy. Until one day, you lashed out in venom. In misunderstanding. You didn't comprehend the depth of the scarce emotions that lay buried and veneered beneath the non-pretentious, genuine caring. You misconstrued the chiding as anger, anger that never existed. You pushed me away with words that added to the scars already existing, that caused so much pain and hurt.
That is when I realized that I had wallowed in self-pity for too long, and it was futile trying to lift you from the darkness when you so willingly jumped into it, when you were embracing it. You wanted the darkness, and all the love I could muster would never take you to light when you somehow saw light when engulfed in darkness.
The irony shocks me, but the the truth is plain and simple, as lucid as the clear Jodhpur sky with it's sparse mottling of stars facaded by wisps of thick clouds.
I retreat into the cocoon, however, stronger than ever, knowing that the feelings of compassion will be invoked yet again by the monster called 'power' that surges within each one of us to satisfy the materialistic wants that we were not born with, and that we will not die with.
