snowflakes and blizzards

ya'aburnee.

ya'aburnee

(n.) lit. 'may you bury me'

"walk with me," i had told you, and with a smile that made me yearn for a thousand years more so that i could grasp your ethereality, you nodded in acceptance of my want. you held your hand before mine, a gesture to have our fingers intertwined.

the sky that night was drowning in a navy blue hue, snowflakes falling in seeming grace, blanketing the very ground we stood on. the fissures of my heart sewed themselves back together the moment your eyes lit up with the fervour of burning globes when you spoke to me about your dreams - it was as if you were a child, and you had for the first time in your life stared up at a thousand stars scattered across the calming tenebrosity of the sky. that night, as the snowflakes fell, i fathomed how your beauty surpassed that of the hundreds of intricately carved snowflakes. all my life, i had always thought of nights as curtains to our profound thoughts, shadows to the deepest of our secrets, a vast blanket that protected us, yet, we had been oblivious to the calamity that loomed.

the genuine and honest feelings that i had harboured within the depths of my heart and corners of my soul for you, incessantly became words that died at the tip of my tongue. you watched me quietly as i fumbled for words, i had to let you know how i felt- my love for you throbbed in my veins, coursed through my bloodstream, and at that moment, i wanted you to see. to know. to feel. but, alas, my lips were nothing but a graveyard of my words to you, and perhaps, it was utterly foolish of me to have thought that fate would express even the tiniest trace of mercy.

time forsook my grasp, slipping through my fingers like sand. as the night became colder, the snowflakes seemed to have lost their grace, falling madly in all directions. the world we knew did not feel like poetry in motion, it felt as if it were an airplane crashing, bereft of oxygen. the heavy snowfall never ceased, only perpetuated by a blizzard- it ripped through every substance around us, obliterating everything within its reach. the numbing air of our white veiled world blinded us, robbing us of our sense of direction. an elusion had not existed, despite our prayers- and perhaps, that was how we met quietus.

i heard it before you had. the rumbling sound from a distance, approaching us. a resounding whistle that told me all i needed to know. at any moment, it was inevitable. beneath my feet, i discerned the protruding structure from the ground. you were crying, begging for everything to stop. we found ourselves on the train tracks, the place we had first met all those ten years ago. the beginning and the end- it was beyond me to grasp the concept. for i had yet to greet a life with you, and i was forced to watch as my dream shiver into nothingness.

my body and mind were now two, trapped in a whirlwind, and the splitting realisation that i could not move struck me. i could feel it deep in my bones, it had to be done, as it was my foot that was rooted in the gap, not yours. your fingers were still intertwined with mine- you had walked through a storm with me - i pulled my hand out of your grasp, pushing you off the tracks, onto the snow-covered ground. you screamed my name, a strangled sob escaping your throat, "no, no, no, i love you, no-", i could not hear the rest of your words as the whistle of the train became the only sound i could hear. for the first time, i was glad that i let you go.

i wish i could have told you how you had gotten under my skin, how you had become a part of me. in the last few moments that fate had granted me, i thought of the final words i would want to tell you but would never be able to. my life, before you, was an endless winter, void of even the slightest tincture of hue. you were the first day of spring that i had yearned to behold throughout my existence. in the world of mine that had only ever watched snowflakes fall, you were the first fall of cherry blossoms that had breathed life into it.

the excruciating agony ripped at the very fibre of my being. my skin pulled away from my bones. my soul felt as if it had been forced out of my frame with utmost brutality. my blood spilled onto the tracks, flowing in between the gaps. it was an end i had never thought i would meet, but alas, i hope you always know that my soul had always seen its partner in yours. years ago, i had made you promise me this, so with all that is left of me, ya'aburnee.