liyana,

You used these three adjectives to describe yourself to me.

Harsh.

Brash.

Constantly wretched.

We had our first fight. We spoke of God. And how our perspectives of the same entity vary. You said God laid too much on too soft a soul. I said all shortcomings and blessings come from Him. How I just wanted you to realise that you owe nobody anything, nothing at all except to Him. Because nothing is mightier than Him.

And you said,’ Speak to me of love. Of life. Of death. Never speak to me of God.’

There goes my hopeful rainbow. Smouldered by your angst of blackness.

There is one Hindustani song that goes like this,

“I am not a heathen, but hey beautiful, ever since I saw you, I have become a believer.”

liyana, we connected on visceral level almost instantaneously. We spoke of love. Of death, yes. Of life. And eventually of Higher being. The subject was unavoidable. We took a plunge into this relationship. We definitely were going into a collision ten times faster than any other normal relationship would.

We skipped the light conversations. We did not speak of the weather. We did not even ask each other trivial and mundane things. We went straight to the core. Raw. And unapologetic.

So our fights were pretty nasty too. And blistering.

They were unavoidable.

The question was how we had survived for the past ten years.

Maybe. Because we did not give up on each other.

Maybe. Despite how you described yourself with the adjectives above, I know you were full of compassion, and love. And sometimes you would get a little defensive, because nobody really made the effort to understand how delicate you could be.

When you told me you had been hurt, I knew it could only happen to the kindest of heart. To be broken and disappointed. Sometimes mercilessly.

It could only happen to someone who had too much love in her heart.

I learned early, that we need to forgive each other a lot. And I learned that you are most beautiful when you let your armor down. Everything about you would soften. Child-like once again.

To hell with those adjectives.

For I have truly become a believer. When I met you.

This first fight. This one defined us.  When we realised that something took form within us.

chairil