Love is a patchwork

Painted these two pieces during the first lockdown of the pandemic in 2020

We never fulfil 'all' of someone. Just parts of them.

A hug at the door after a long day at work, someone to share the last bite with, a face to wake up to. A hand to hold when cutting your own birthday cake. A heart to bury our pain in. A borrowed walk in a wild forest. A Sherpa to their mountain summit. A guide to cross the valley.

We are also reminders to some, sneaking in their inbox, sliding admiration under the doorstep of self-doubt. We are music, mixtapes, fragrant prayers, favourite recipes, chill Saturday plan, shopping partners and shoulders to lean on for unannounced naps. The desire is to be their whole world and yet struggle to keep that one piece safe.

May be, this too is a revelation. A swallowed truth, spitting comforting lies. That we were only street lamps for people passing by. Lighting up dark alleys of their unspoken mind, rendering assurance to their troubled heart; hoping to catch a hazy glimpse of their actuality. Always dreaming a possibility of them loving us with the emphasis of stars not mere lamps.

The catharsis is in knowing that while we lit up to keep others safe, we too weren’t alone somehow.

Therefore, in my heart resides now, my perfect city of love. A sky borrowed from an artistic sunset in Nepal with a colleague, a street abuzz with a familiar face in the New York chase, the taste of coffee from the sample stock at the farmer’s market in San Francisco with someone who cared to drive me there, a walk alongside the botanical gardens of Edinburgh with a stranger I met at the ticketing booth, a quite bonfire to curl up to on a Saturday night with a sibling, after months.

Our version of ‘Perfect’, often, is an exquisite collage of just-about, close enough and somewhat.

If we allow, this too is happiness.