Seeker
I sometimes wonder whether I am asking for too much,
I’m not.
Whether the things I long for have become relics of another century,
I wonder.
I want the kind of love that makes a man look forward to coming home everyday. Open the door and behold the reason his heart beats and tears fall.
The kind that turns ordinary 3PMs into cherished memories and makes the presence of another human being feel like the greatest privilege life could offer.
I want to write letters that take hours to compose, poems that no one would believe I could write, not because I have little to say, but because there is so much I wish to make of her.
Like the little things;
how she takes her coffee, what makes her laugh out loud, which childhood memories she holds close, what fears she keeps hidden from the rest of the world. I want to be the person she runs to when earth becomes unkind, just as I hope she would be mine.
I want our fingers to be intertwined while we cross the street, she’ll try to walk in sync with me while I laugh at how much time it takes her to do it.
I want to smile with her as well, even when the jokes are not as funny as they used to be, but my dentition will not care because it was never her humor that made me smile.
But sometimes, intimacy feels like autumn leaves being pulled away from their branches by an indifferent wind.
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The more I reach for it, the further it seems to drift.
Genuine affection feels increasingly elusive, and true love, at times, resembles something imagined by God, preserved only in the pages of New Testament.
Or
Perhaps I have read too much Kafka, Dostoyevsky, and romanticized much of. Shakespeare, I’ve allowed myself to believe that somewhere in this enormous world, there is a woman who dreams of the same simplicity I do. A woman who wants more than temporary excitement, convenient companionship, or the fleeting satisfaction of being desired. Someone who wants to build something, nurture it, protect it, and grow old beside it.
I will not want to conquer the world only to return to an empty home. Where the air seems quiet and trees lonely.
I don’t want to accumulate wealth, travel across continents, celebrate victories, or experience life’s greatest adventures without someone with whom I can share them. Success seems a little less magnificent when there is no familiar voice waiting to hear about your day.
I don’t want to live, eat, laugh, succeed, grow old, or eventually die alone.
I want a love that survives the less beautiful seasons of life. A love that does not disappear when youth fades, finances crumbles, beauty dies, circumstances become difficult.
Even when the years begin to leave their marks on our faces I want to know someone so deeply that after decades, I can still look across a room and find myself falling all over again.
And perhaps this is the most romantic and unreasonable thing I could ever ask for, I want to be buried beside the woman I have spent my life admiring. Not because death is something I romanticise, but because I cannot imagine a more beautiful conclusion to a lifetime than having shared even our final resting place. Two people who chose each other in life, still lying side by side when the world has finally fallen silent.
I am searching for something that exists more beautifully in literature than it does in reality. But I would try to remain hopeful than convince myself that love is nothing more than a temporary arrangement between two lonely people.
For now, I suppose I will keep seeking, silently.
Perhaps somewhere beyond these restless seas, there is another soul looking at the same horizon, wondering whether someone like me still exists.
And I hope, when our paths finally cross, neither of us is too tired to believe.
I will always believe.
