Where we left.

Do you remember the day we last met? I am pretty sure you must have forgotten about it; after all, we only remember that which we try to keep holding onto, attempting as much as possible to save the moment. One even goes to the length of wishing that maybe time should stop right here, and this moment shall stay as it is for a long time.

It was a chilly winter morning when I last saw you. You were not very far from me, but still, the distance was a giant leap. I was scared that if I took one extra step towards you, all this would end or just shatter, as if it was a dream. you walked at your own pace i was right behind just one step shorter. Even after so long i can't help but ask myself, what would have happened if you had turned towards me, and I would see the same hesitation lingering in your eyes?

No, I wished that you would have never looked back at me. "Looking back"—doesn't this term kind of summarize most of our lives? We usually say to our close ones, or even to others, that "looking back, I wish I would have done that or this." Can we, or do we actually want to? We will never know, as it is not possible, and that is why we love to rant about it. Because if it had been something we could have done, or been able to do, we would have either run away or jumped at the first chance we had gotten.

We love to live in the past, in an old memory book that wishes to be opened. I don't know about many others, but I find myself traveling in my past as if rummaging through an old memory photobook waiting to be cleaned and relived. It's strange; every time I open it, I find myself stuck at different points of events, and at times, I don't even remember them correctly. So, I try to make the nearest possible guess that aligns with what I wish it to be.

You are one such event. I have tried to recreate that exact day in multiple possible ways so that we could have been different today. It's a little game I play with myself: I push myself to the extremes of imagination regarding the past and then try to live them as if they really did happen. Sometimes the boundaries between what happened and what I want to happen start to blur, and I have to stop this. But sometimes, I just let it happen. At least in dreams, i think a man should be free.

I always wish or wonder: did you look back that day when you turned to leave? Did you try to steal a last look, believing that it might be the last time we might be meeting? I wanted to stop you and ask for your number or at least give you something from my side that might have made you remember that I was someone behind you in a journey.

But as far as I remember, you didn't look back, but I did. I waited at the platform, thinking about what I could have done differently, hoping things would not have been the same as they are today. What could I have done? You barely knew me; I couldn't have stopped you. I wish I could have at least said to you, "One day, I wish to see you again. I wish to talk to you more and know more about you," but that didn't happen. How many are the guilts, how many are the regrets? So little life, and so much to change.

I have tried to make peace with what I didn't do that day, and hope for what I can do afterwards.

For a long time, your absence was left at the station where we last met. For a few days, I revisited that place, hoping that you might return to take this absence of yours with you, but you didn't. Why would you, and why would anyone? Once someone leaves, they don't return. What they leave is their absence—not a void, but a simple absence that lingers with those who return to the place to hold on to something that the other person might have accidentally forgotten, thinking that it might be left for them.

Still, I am glad that your absence is slowly fading away. Maybe because you never left, or maybe you did take a look back, but just weren't able to hold it, fearing you might also return to this platform asking the same questions as me.

Note: The blog might become a bit irregular owing to my difficulty in processing what to present. Still, to all those who read what I write: Thank you, and I will keep writing.

And for those wondering if it's real: it is as real as you think it to be, and as fictitious as you make it. If not mine, it is someone's tale. Or maybe mine. I leave that to you all.

P.S. Another song to