It laid on my writing desk, hidden
Beneath all those bulky envelopes
Containing rejection slips from the editors,
Book reviews, contracts pending to be signed-
All symbols of my glorious writing career.

But this one’s presence was different,
I slowly took the envelope in my hands,
The lettering of the address seemed so familiar.
As I touched and stroked the alphabets.
Slowly, my mindset drifted to that period,
The era when I used to receive similar mails
Each and every day from this individual.

She has written to me now, after a long spell.
It felt like ages ago, for I never read
Those mails she sent me,
In protest of her rebuff of my wedding plans,
My dreams of us being together,
Each moment I imagined being with her
Was shattered by her loyalty,
In her words, to be there for her family’s needs.

What is now happening to me is strange…
The nostalgia created a lump in my throat,
My heart became heavy, in deep regret.
The agony of her loss seems too much for me to bear,
But why I remained so detached
All this time, I am unable to understand or
Justify myself, for what I feel now to be
Yet another fatal act of my rash conduct.

I have to be with her, it may be late already.
But it is going to be now or never, I reason.
I remembered her tears when I left our village
To the city- to take hold of new dreams,
Yearning for new horizons filled with hopes,
To let go of the despair I had to endure here.

In my memory that moment is etched brutally,
For once I had seen a zealous emotion in her
That never moved me, never made me ponder
On what I was doing.

Her tears fell on my unrelenting heart
That refused to wait for her.
They fell on the barren soulless dried earth that
Only awaited showers aplenty for its lushness
Instead of the meagre droplets she had shed.

These indulgences of reflection make me desperate
To end the torment thronging, rhetorically
Questioning me unremittingly on my shameful deed.

The letter still lies in my hand, unopened,
The contents still undisclosed to me.
I tore it open with trembling fervour,
A second of more waiting will kill me,
But what is this I behold?

…Only emptiness!

The contents, where are they?
Misplaced…
How can that be?
Maybe
It was the fate’s inhuman doing.
Or
It could be hers… hers…
To make me realise that I am a fool!

Even in the emptiness, there was profusion
Of the truth, professing the undying ember-like truth
That I still loved her, blindly…
As a thousand tears drenches the envelope,
Her envelope…