Lonely Flame

Its been raining outside - smooth and silky rains that want to paint the leaves of trees with large brush strokes. Hesitatingly and naughtily, the cool breeze is playing hide and seek with streams of raindrops that seem to be hanging from the dark heavens. There's nobody on the streets and it is very peaceful. Born out of nature, it is permeating the mind, body and souls of every living creature. The calm and the clarity are immense. And being alone at home in the midst of this shower of love is not very heartening for a die hard romantic like me. I crave company. I crave love. I crave a touch - of anybody - my mother, my pet, or my beloved; even my unborn daughter. A touch of tender loving care that gives appropriate context to today's blessings. Oh how I wish someone I love would love me too! Could there be anything more beautiful than that at this moment?

Loneliness is such a disease! It almost turned me into a chain-smoker and an alcoholic. Conversation, with anyone, is quite cathartic. My unshowered love, inside my heart, finds a momentary distraction. Today, there is no company and no conversation. Thank god I found the company of books in my childhood. They speak to me and I listen. They love me most in my loneliness. They provide balm and succor. They nourish, massage and cuddle my lonely soul. Perhaps, if things don't work out in the human world, I will formally marry one of them, coz they're the best friends and everlasting company that I've found.

I have never been in denial of anything. I am a realist. But only I know with how much pain and suffering I have consciously denied myself the expression of love. I am a realist and I know it would be futile. My love is very precious to me. I will not let it go waste. When the time comes, the stream will find its way to the ocean. But for now, I have dammed it inside my heart, constantly living under the fear that the dam will burst and kill me along with it. No, let it be like an inferno that has been preserved as a silent flame of a wax candle, waiting..waiting..waiting...

No, I cant let that candle go out. Just to escape the pain of waiting and bleeding little by little everyday, I cannot let that flame go out. I know of lonely people who come to terms with their loneliness by slowly suffocating that flame. But tell me, can anyone still remain a human after he has puffed out love from his heart? I know I wouldn't be. And I know loveless people aren't. Even a celibate sage has divine love in his heart. Its not our ability to think intelligently that makes us human. But its our capacity to love someone selflessly that gives us certain superiority.