THE RIDE

Ten summers ago,
You were the reason why I wrote.
Words flowed;
Excitement rolled
For with every stroke of the pen
Beautiful poetry unleashed,
Powerful stories were told.
With you in mind,
Words could form a symphony.

In my joy,
In my pain,
In my craziness,
In my doubt,
There was always a subtle feeling of you.
But people get mad
And some drift away
People fight losing battles
Just so they know at least they tried.

They say,
You can hate what you once loved.
But I’ve realized,
When it’s human
You can’t.
Scratch that, when it’s you
I cannot even try!
The memories were not so black and white
And the greys did matter too.
I’ve learnt to stay away from the maybes,
I’ve pushed away the what ifs.

Today when you stopped the car to say hi,
I was caught between a civil smile and a frown.
But when you said,
Mind if I gave you a ride?
We both know that smile of yours did the trick.
I wanted silence
But you like always knew,
My silence meant a decision had been made in mind
So like always, you broke it.
You spoke
And I promised you
I wasn’t going to say anything.
I never thought I could remain neutral.
But I did!
No reflections,
No regrets.
And just like you offered to drive down the streets,
I realized
It was worth it;
Every bit of the ride.
And when it ended
I realized,
There’d be days you might pop up in my life.
But it doesn’t matter
I could learn to deal with that!