Ghungroo - The Siren Call of Lovers (#2)

Chapter 52 - Not this S**t Again!

Chapter 52

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf...."

My head floods with words. They topple over each other, clashing and colliding.

"Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts..."

How is it that I even remember these...these large chunks of passages? I didn't even realize I had committed it to memory.

"And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

My dance feels different this time.

The words of Khalil Gibran cloud my mind. No... Perhaps cloud is the wrong word to use because the phrases and passages I remember to be Gibran's, strangely bring a clarity to my mind. They crowd my head with a crispness, each word and meaning beaming in me like sturdy rays of sunshine, searching and creeping into the dark crevices of my mind and dispelling the shadows that lurk there.

The passages from Gibran become an earworm. They are set on repeat in my head.

I barely hear Maddox greet me when I arrive at the gallery. I watch Delia's mouth move as she speaks but I don't hear her words. And yet, in all of this chaos of my mind, there is clarity. It's like a blinding white light, radiating warmth that spreads throughout my body.

I feel loved. It's like a warm cloak that has been draped over icy skin. It's such a strange feeling.

As I dance, I feel the difference in me. This dance feels like a swan song. Poignant...poetic even. I feel every movement, every gesture. They are filled with loss and heartache. A lover's lament...

Yes, I've danced beautifully before. I've learnt how to execute every moment with surgical precision but to dance with emotion is something entirely different. I feel...different.

Dammit! I need to stop thinking this.

But my audience feels it too. I can feel it. I don't seek out their faces as I dance, but I can feel the electric charge of the atmosphere. It's like naked wires hanging above me that's been plugged into an electric socket and switched on.

My mother and Kumari Devi would be so proud.

I hear the clear tinkle of my bells.

I feel every beat. Every pulse of sound vibrates through me. It's amazing the sounds I am able to elicit from these ankle bells. Sounds I've never made before, never heard before.

I hear the difference in them. I feel their energy spill from the purity of their metal.

This was Riaan's gift to me. The meaning of them fills me and brims out.

He thought I was beautiful...unique...pure.

He wants me to succeed...He wants me to be happy...

Yet, he left...Does he not know that happiness means being with him...so selfish of him to leave me a letter that wishes me the impossible.

The music stops and I come to rest in the center of my stage. I close my eyes and drink in the applause from the crowd. It is deafening. My pulse races.