If I am that girl who pushed pins into the world map on the wall with you all afternoon, tying strings around them, locating our favorite places, objects of interest. If I am that girl who stole your ‘kerchief because it had the map of your face, a band of wetness from your mouth. If I am that girl who sat in your class, an unrelated subject, and took elaborate notes because you were up late and didn’t make it to the lecture, and when you did, you kept staring at me as if I’d pulled you in by my eyelash.
If I am that girl who dozed off, snug into the curve of you while watching a Bollywood thriller, and when we woke up, the electricity was out, it was still night, our bodies were beading with sweat and frustration, and there was nothing else to do except to yawn and let out our family’s secrets.
If I am that girl who begged you to slow down as you raced your car on the highway because you wanted to show-off and when the cop caught us speeding, how I cried and begged that we were rushing to the hospital to see my dad who nearly died of a third heart attack.
If I am that girl who accompanied you to watch an American movie in an old theatre on the outskirts of our town, who saw your jaw drop when the couple started kissing on screen and you placed your mouth on mine without knowing what to do next. We swiped our tongues on each other’s lips, made wet sounds. We barely spoke afterwards.
If I am that girl when you sat beside you at the dinner table in your home when you announced that you wanted to go to Mumbai and try films. Dust rose when you father banged his fist on the table in disapproval. I felt my bones move. The next day you got a tattoo on your upper arm. “I’m going for roles with a shade of grey,” you said. “Like Shahrukh Khan in Baazigar!” I exclaimed. You nodded, pulled me into your shadow. Your hands beneath my blouse, your face so close it blurred. I breathed next to the purple vein in your neck. From the corner of my eye, your fresh wound covered in gauze. Healing, flaming.
If I am that girl who pressed her mouth on your shoulder before you boarded the train to Mumbai. If I am that girl who waved and waved since you were too busy into your thoughts of becoming a superstar someday. In those moments, I missed you so terribly that I didn’t blink until you became a dot, until only a lair of train tracks was left between us. On the way back, the road glowed with passing headlights, the darkness in between undid that girl in me, her reek thinner in the wind as the night fastened and closed around her.
