january and you

i thought of you when it rained yesterday evening. it came sudden and unexpected, just as how you had first appeared. and like the plenty that only hindsight sees, the beauty of that moment escaped me then. rainfall, yesterdays, evenings, you. embodiments of romance and dreams in my reach, what more could i have asked for. what more should i, apart from perhaps, for ever? why, for treasuring the moment of course. cliches. that's one thing you have taught and taught me well, why these cheap words are to be fiercely avoided like spurned raging lovers. the rejected do nothing but harm. but contrary to what you believe, cliches are not the trouble-makers - it's their users. cant you see, those instigators - no - vandals defacing with abandon the hallowed, wizened words of yore, all for a desperate minute of plagiarised pride and fame (so they think), all because they can. slowly, our lines blurred - guide-traveller, mentor-pupil, heart-soul - lovers. i ventured to touch your soft white hands, and you held on to my laboured, trembling ones. but that adventure did not smoothen my doubts. i dont know of what; of the unknown - can you see this irony? but we couldnt resist one more cliche, tempting fate - we'll see, let time decide. i could not tell whether you whispered out of conviction or resignation. it was blind faith in life's hopeful little destinies, but what could we do really, but to await the Grand Dame Time and Her Ticking Hands show us what will be will be? i dont know if Time wears a watch, perhaps she has no need for it. watches and ticking seconds are man's invention, only mere mortals like us device such mechanics to interpret this universe and its invisible wheels; not unlike how the myriad of gods man conceived since time immemorial have always been what man is not and can never be, isnt it? blind faith in us as man have in their gods. but dont let hubris get to me, susceptible though i am, a few victories and i think myself invincible. fallen men and broken hearts invariably surrender themselves to melodious paeans of time and god and its ever-grace. i'll return to thanking life's little mercies. like meeting you. like thinking of when we first met: i had looked at you from afar, and thought i, only i, was the secretly-admiring voyeur.

no, you later said, i was but a fish in the tank.

when the seconds wash us by
to the next years of this time
will we revive our raucous laughter
from this second night of twelvetide?