A thousand Love Letters

Dearest  Dhruv,

Your skylark is singing again, to brave the darkest hour, hoping to lure her dawn with the saddest song. The darkest hour of the night is just before the dawn, so say the wise men of yore. You are my dawn that is eluding my every attempt at reconciliation.  Didn’t you promise me everything and the moon? Have you forgotten the vows we made?

Years ago, when we promised to be together until death do us apart, I didn’t think that there would come a day when you would begin to hate me to the extent that you would storm out of a room if anyone mentioned my name.

But whatever happens, I can’t seem to hate you. I know about the hatred you have piled in that corner of your heart where once I had my own safe haven. I know you don’t trust me anymore. You wouldn’t believe that I never cheated you, that it was a carefully plotted trap that Priya had woven to tear us apart. I have all the proof but you didn’t even give me a chance to explain.

Hadn’t we set a rule that whatever happens we would hear the other person out before deciding anything? But you broke that rule. You left me in tears while I tried to explain that your mother never liked me and had played her part perfectly in the play enacted by Priya and her team. You never realized that Aryan is Priya’s closest friend, I don’t even know him. All his claims that we were anything else is false, but you didn’t stop to listen. You had seen him in our bedroom, but did you know that Priya too was there then, hiding in the wardrobe waiting for Aryan to enact his role?Would you believe that I was trying to save myself from being raped when you arrived?Can’t you think that I would never let a stranger in unless they are accompanied by a friend? Your mother was with me throughout but she sneaked out before you arrived. 

But you would not believe me. Sadly, you believed everything that your mother and Priya told you.

I had thought I had learnt to fill the void you had left with mindless hours of work. But I am wrong. I wander in the rooms of the home we built at night, looking for signs of your presence. That lone T-shirt that you left in the cupboard often gets wet with my tears; I wear your cologne to breathe in your presence.

I promised my parents that I would move on, undoubtedly, you had moved on, they said. But why then do I feel assured that you would return before long, bringing with you the dawn that I await?

I feel forlorn now that you are continents away; the pit of dread in my stomach is becoming unbearable by the second. A nagging little voice in the back of my head tells me that your heartstrings have stopped singing my name, the ravages of time and the flight of memory has torn down the resistance of that stubborn sinew. I don’t want to hear that, I refuse to believe.

If it is the truth, just tell me so. I will not write another word to you. This is my thousandth mail- I wrote one to you every day.  I am writing this in the darkest hour of my life. I loathe this teary existence; I grieve your loss, my lost innocence. I can never be the same again without you. Your absence has tainted my blood with the poison of your love. Every sunset reminds me that I have lost yet another day of hope. 

The lantern of expectation is now beginning to smoke dark fumes of despair. The fire of love that kindled it is long exhausted; my wet eyes crave now for the light of the dawn.

Come my darling, my dawn; do not tell me it is too late. Do not tell me that the embers of hope have frozen forever.

Only yours,

Neha