Not the future, but you.

Staying anyway

I look at the crease on your forehead.
My internet just got disconnected,
your face frozen on my phone
as I desperately try to reconnect.

I pause
and look at the crease on your forehead.
I wonder
if you see one
on my forehead too.

It was not there the night we met,
this crease on our foreheads.
On that night, I remember
your carefree, faint smile
as I looked at you
from the corner of my eye.

A whole night wasn’t enough
to look at that carefree smile,
and yet it was enough
to make us come back to each other,
searching for the same feeling
we felt that night,
the night we met for the first time.

But love changed its seasons,
and so did the creases on our faces.
From wrinkles around our mouths,
from laughing too hard,
to these creases on our foreheads.
From worry about our present then
and worry about our future now.

I think a lot about our future now,
and you tell me not to worry.
But how do I tell you
I’m worried more
for those creases on your forehead
than our seemingly out-of-hand future?

I think about time a lot,
the night we met,
shared a box of cigarettes,
as we sat on my balcony.

I gazed into the woods
as if gazing into my future,
trying to find you there
by any chance.

It was forbidden love to start with.
That is when I first saw them, 
momentarily,
the same creases on your forehead
when you told me not to worry.

The crease has made its appearance
multiple times
in the time we have been together.
There were days
it took the best of us,
made us question this love
that was forbidden to start with.

And yet we found our way back.

But something shifted,
slowly,
over the years,
and we found our way back  again,
not searching for that faint smile
from the night we met,
but for the present
that makes leaving impossible.

I still think of the future,
about how it feels forbidden still.
But something has changed.

I didn’t stop being afraid,
I just stayed anyway.

Perhaps it is the same for you,
as I gaze at the frozen screen,
trying to find my way back
to the present us.

As I see how the weight of this love
has begun to show on your face,
and when you tell me not to worry,
I realize
over the years,
I started worrying more
for those creases on your forehead
than our seemingly out-of-hand future.

Photo by Ahmed Nishaath on Unsplash