Kintsugi

It doesn’t take much to fall in love with someone.

Sometimes it takes a night of intimacy that leaves you wanting to wake up to them forever.

Sometimes, it takes lying in their arms on a lazy Sunday afternoon while watching the rains fall.

Sometimes, it takes dancing with them amongst people, aware of their gaze on you, on every move you make.

Sometimes, it takes evenings spent walking with your hand held, with fleeting kisses in the shadows.

Sometimes, it takes countless conversations over several months, turning curiosity and interest in adoration.

It doesn’t take much for you to carve a space for their warmth, for their company.

So you begin to pine. For tenderness, for the haven that allows you to be vulnerable, even if it were but an occasional grace.

And you remember. You remember every moment with every fibre of your being. You remember so much, your heart aches.

For it doesn’t take much to fall out of love with someone.

Sometimes, it takes being issued an ultimatum to stay or walk away from them.

Sometimes, it takes being left agape when you tentatively reach out for a kiss.

Sometimes, it takes being conveniently ignored.

Sometimes, it takes having your time and attention trifled with.

And so, with each failed attempt, you approach the next with even less to lose. With each occasion of having your needs denied, of having affection accorded to you in fits and snatches, you pull up the walls even higher.  

You are forever mourning the lack of foresight, the ease with which you give in each time. You are forever grieving the years you keep losing to being hung up over them, chasing them, crying over them.

Until the tables turn and affection comes your way when you least expect it, when you have long given up on the hope of it ever materialising.

But you find yourself cold in the very arms you once sought refuge in. You find no comfort in being embraced, your heart remains still, hardened to the core despite being caressed and kissed in the gentlest of ways. You are no longer moved by the tremble in their voice, the sighs punctuating each pregnant pause, the barely concealed undercurrent of pain that flashes through every now and then.

You could not care less, it would seem.

Too little, too late is perhaps an apt, wise adage, after all.

However you can’t help but ask: what does it take to fall in love with someone yet again?

Does it mean salvaging a bridge from being burnt to ashes? Does it mean refilling and repairing the cracks that snake down to the very foundation?

And, perhaps most importantly, does it mean according a chance at redemption even if those questions continue to remain unanswered?