Stop Pooping, I Miss You
if this is not love, then what is?
S and I tag each other in memes. A lot. Memes like this one.
Especially in the brief burst of time when we were a couple of newly twenty year olds and sleepwalked-scrolled Facebook for everything (i.e. before instagram lapped up our fickle attention and we collectively migrated over). We scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, and when the screen refused to throw up anything new, we pulled down the screen to refresh the feed. Once, twice, once more. Switched the phone to flight mode and back within two seconds. Tapped on the Wi-Fi icon. Waited for it to catch the infamously bad college Wi-Fi. Sitting in the second (her) and last (me) rows of our respective classrooms, in the same building or sometimes in campuses at two ends of the city, we refresh our feeds, to find ways to tell each other i lou you. Lit up bell icons became our love language.
We met on our first day in the new city, away from what was home, away enough that it is thrilling yet frightening yet freeing. And shared our first night in the (hostel) apartment shared by eight strangers (possible friends) of whom only two of us had moved in. A couple of almost eighteen-year olds. Kids (retrospectively). We slept in beds lining the corners of opposite walls of the large hall empty except for the two of us. Silence descended as lights went out. Cold wind push past windows and dogs bark.
Are you awake?
One of us threw a shaky dart in the air.
Are you scared?
The other held out her hand.
We tagged each other under posts that we wanted the other to see, sometimes because it reminded us of them, most times because we wanted the other to see/go through what we did. Incessantly. We replied to each others’ comments. Typed out the first letters of our name, tapped at the first name in the suggestion dropdown, and let our fingers dance. Comments subtle enough to keep everyone out, enticing enough to keep some guessing. We left sneaky likes on the comments where the other tagged someone else. The bell icon lit up again and again.
Once she told me she likes that we exchange secret codes online. All our posts, comments, emojies public for anyone to see but not understand. Because everything has a context and another and another and those are tangled world-stories in our heads that make sense to only us (or we like to believe so). She told she like being the keeper of mysteries, and yet loves that we share all these secrets.
A once-boyfriend confessed once that he was relieved when I showed up without her at our first movie-date.Unlike all the other times we (him and I) planned to meet, and we (her and I) assumed it was understood that unless specifically mentioned (and debated, fought) all plans included both of us. We existed as a unit. Spacious enough to fit both of us, with windows for wind and light. When breathing became difficult, we fought, pushed and gruntled, and made more space. Still, a unit throughout.
He was not the first or the last boyfriend to catch the “I feel like a third wheel here” flu. We are in true love, we poke our tongues out at them. Or lou, as we spell it. Not the meaning-heavy L-O-V-E that everyone talk, cry, make art about and are led to desperately seek. But something that feels softly refreshing, something makes you expand like a room does when its windows are pushed open to let in the moon and wind.
Back then, we lived a text away from each other, but most times found ourselves in the hall of the two bhk that I share with two of our friends, in the island we build joining my single mattress and a yoga mat the colour of a ripe orange. Just like at all the homes I lived, when unfelt feelings clog every inch of me and refuse to let me breathe, I get up and walk myself to the toilet and shut the door behind me to soundlessly cry or poop. The heavier the hurt lodged in the chest, the longer I stay inside the toilet. I sit on the commode that is too close to the walls that one has to sit on it with both legs on the same side. Legs pressed together like a lady on the backseat of a two-wheeler.
I was pooping, I tell. I repeat the lie I practiced earlier while splashing cold water at my face, eyy no, I didn’t cry, its the soap. I washed my face and a little soap got into my eye. They accept. The shadow of offence in their eyes softens into kindness when I squirm under the weight of concern in their voice.
A night I stayed too long inside the toilet, she pushed a piece of paper under the door. A rectangle bit shabbily torn out from a single lined notebook. Written in orange sketch ink over blue lines, a message.
stop pooping, i miss you.
I sat on the floor holding the paper. Touching every bit of the ink, dragging my fingers along the words over and over. I walked out and pressed my index finger on her arm, as we do when we want to squish-hug-each-other-and-say-i-love-you.
I tucked the piece of paper into a book, and later as we moved cities and houses, I began to stick it to the walls of my rooms.
Yet. Every time a laborious wave of sadness takes my breath away, I slip in to the toilet shutting out the world behind me. I cry, time passes. Inside the four walls I sit listening to water drip from the tap under the shower, sadness grows over me like moss over a damp wall.
My eyes dart back to the paper stuck on the wall.
The last time she visited me in Delhi, we shared my earphones on the auto-ride to someplace.
We sang along, smiled our softest smiles, blushed and looked away. Into the mirror where our eyes meet.
If this is not lou, then what is.
We poke our tongues at each other.
Happy birthday, S. Happy friendship day, world.
Hi there, thank you for reading.
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