Dearest friend,
I do not write with much sanity left, but surely with much more certainty clinging to the mirror. It is difficult, you must realise, to speak of a lost treasure.
There was, however, something restless about her. Something that made my heart flutter every time, and yet something that terrified me to the core. It hadn't started that way, nevertheless.
It had started as me truly trying to understand her and seeing nothing but handfuls of spring. Her smile bright and the faintest touch of her hand generous. Meant to nothing but support, nothing but let one lean against and bare a soul to and want to soak in the sun with.
And I say that with complete recall of every dry winter and every damp rain and every time her letters would set my gloom ablaze. There was not a day I saw her without inspiration, without the need to be, to envy, to hold. Such a strange concoction the mind is. The more we see the more we feel, and the more we drown. Because feelings are as treacherous as it gets.
The more we love, the more we anger.
I suppose she wasn't beyond the whimsy of the mind, after all. Even though I certainly happened to be beyond the will to comprehend her twisted phrases. They were not quite twisted, I suppose. They were simple in the heart of it all. Drenched in the affections of an admirer, every loop nothing but more of her heart etched into cursive. It evoked some strange admiration in me, just as it made parts of me recoil.
I think that was when I started being a little terrified. She could not have meant any of it, I concluded, and my clenched at each letter was enough weight on my nerves. I never threw any of those away, nonetheless. Too sweet, too precious. Too close to my aspirations. Too bright in her never-ending spring.
Till her warmth was the vine strangling my breath, violent in her sugary kindness. I think that was when I started loathing her a little. Smiling as much as her and trying to see through her, into her, oh hells - past her. Eradicate the vehement shadow of her tightening ropes from around my very soul, I prayed, as I let some of her presents crackle in the hearth. It was venom, her too-gentle breath, clogging my very lungs.
She glimmered too bright that evening too, too hopeful in her smile, too bereft in her love. Oh dear, how I hated her love of it all. How I hated her efforts to set my gloomy sky ablaze and pour her vicious light over my beloved shadows.
How I hated the way every glance seemed to endear her further, drift her further away from the home of me, and me from the truth of me. How I hated the silken touch of her hair and every beloved memory it invoked, and the sheer lack of the terror that clawed at my frigid heart in her luminous eyes.
Fear is the mother of caution, and caution has saved many a life.
Not hers, however. Her spring was too alive to give into winter. Thus, I decided, she may dwell in her sweet bloom forevermore. Drowning me up to the chin, but never stealing my breath.
Alas, I am terrified still. Her letters terrify me with their alien incomprehension. For no soul outside of her sweetened paradise may fathom a syllable without choking on the honey of it.
~~~
Um, hi everyone-
Yeah, so storytime of me since November: Remember the fateful day I posted and said I'm backkkk, yeah, so my semester exams got announced the next day-
21st birthday, ruined. But hey, atleast I hit the 9+ GPA mark for the first time? ANYWAYS.
I returned and realised that I could not bring myself to write. Anything. My nervous system was stressed out and breaking at the fringes. So, I dove into a series of writing exercises. I have been shadow writing listlessly for over a month now, till I finally sat to write this afternoon and this thing somehow took a life of its own-
So, here is Act II, because I cannot go back to where I was, but we can certainly race forward.
I hope you all had a few wonderful months, and hope to make the coming days better with some creative indulgence. Furthermore, thank you for reaching out to me on my email, telegram and instagram. I'm yet to reply to much of it, but the new year has kept me busy with a social cleansing, so I hope to get back to it all.
Bonus points to anyone who guesses which piece of classic literature inspired this.
~With much love,
Bristi <3
~~~
DATE: 26/01/2026; WORDS: 794
YOU ARE READING
The Burning Rose
Historical FictionA MAHABHARATA RETELLING ~~~ All the other flowers in the garden were brought up to envy the rose. Maybe shun it even. And admire it, too. Unusual ways. Too-red petals, too-sharp thorns, too-sweet fragrance. If only each flower did not have a mind...
