“I am no longer in love with her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
― Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
There are words, but then there are feelings that are associated with them. I have read a great deal of poetry from various celebrated poets and quotes from renowned writers. Of all the writings I have come across, Neruda’s words come very close to the reality of what I have felt and what I believe in.
Neruda penned down his poems starting from his early teens until the last phase of his literary and mortal life, he celebrated love in ways like no other writer has but then this may be my isolated opinion. There is this bond that binds us with specific writers, more so with the words they carve. Perhaps they tell us the story of our life in ways that we ourselves individually want it to be written, only the words are of the others, experiences are the same.
Love is an experience, more so it’s a way of life and every moment you are a part of it, there is something new to learn about. I like the above mentioned quote as it is almost synonymous to everything I have gone through. Being in a relation has taught me the minor nuances that one faces, the sense of collective partnership and the feeling of not being alone in various steps of life, but that’s the better part of it. When a relation snaps it leaves behind a bitter experience, but sometimes that’s not the case, sometimes situations are not ideal. I quote the following lines from the movie JTHJ by Rishi Kapoor, “The time wasn’t right, perhaps the situation wasn’t ideal, but that doesn’t mean that our love was wrong”
When the storm has subsided, when the waters have settled down, we finally get the time to ponder about that’s actually happened. There might still be a chance to undo the wrong but then not everyone gets such opportunities. Falling in love is easy, people do that all the time but carrying it forward is the point where our mettle is tried, out faith in others put to test. Those who can’t sustain, break apart and relations are buried, forgotten and disremembered.
I am no longer in love with her that’s what everyone says. That’s what I keep telling myself and that’s maybe certain in the eyes of the others, but then when I look back at us, when flashbacks happen when I sometimes unknowingly wait for that one phone call I am forced to reconsider my stance. Maybe I still love her. Maybe she does too. Maybe Neruda is right all along. Love is so short, yet it lives in forms so strange. The memories continue to burn and remind me that all is not lost. Loving someone is easy forgetting them so hard…. I still overlook those feelings.
Even Pablo was hopeful of the same, “Although this may be the last pain she causes me, and this may be the last poem I write for her.”
– Anas Ahmad
