THE CICAK.com

My love, today, a year ago

By JASON LIM

I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars,
and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with
the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine.

Lover’s Gifts V : I Would Ask For Still More, Rabindranath Tagore

After three years away,
lingering long goodbyes to foreign friends and familiar English streets,
I left Holborn, Russell Square, Heathrow, London,
a year ago, today, on a plane.

Independence day might not seem a particularly auspicious day, but for me - it was a significant date to take my flight back to her.

I had only begun to really know her in my late teens.
Her history, her parents, her quirks and flaws.
They say love grows from understanding,
but that itself, cannot be understood.

And so there are many things I do not understand about my love for her.

That love would bring me to her.
That love would bring me home.

I do not understand
how she makes me feel alive like no other,
how her smiles make me happy and her troubles make me sad.

I do not understand
how I love her,
yet she does not love me back.

While I am proud that she is mine,
somehow, I will never be hers.

As lovers do,
I won’t seek to understand these things.
Instead, today, as it was a year ago,
all that is important
is that I am with her.

And one day,
she too will love me.

—
JASON LIM is the assistant director of theCICAK.