I would peel oranges for you, but would you bookmark the page of the book I was reading if I accidentally fall asleep? That’s all I’m asking. Not devotion, not declarations under moonlight or songs on empty balconies. Not the ache of love, but the hum of it, so soft it’s nearly mistaken for silence.
I mean, I would hold the umbrella slanted toward you, letting my shoulder soak, even though I hate the rain. I would learn the names of the people you only mention once, remember the smell of your shampoo just in case you forget. I would stay up past my thresholds and undo my rituals just to make space for the mess you bring. But I wonder… if the weight of quiet things I do ever echoes in your chest when you breathe in my name?
Sometimes love is just the sound of a kettle boiling when you didn’t ask for tea. Or noticing the way someone dog-ears their pages and never correcting them. It’s not grand, it’s grazing.
You see, people write poems about falling, but no one writes about staying. No one tells you how loud the silence is when the page turns without you. Or how the spine of a book bends differently when your hands aren’t the ones touching it.
I once folded a paper crane and whispered your name into it before letting it drift down a river. I don’t know why, I think I just wanted the water to know too. The current was gentle that day.
But I guess this is where it all bends inward. Where I stare at your shadow across the room and realize I’ve always given things without receipts.
I’ve peeled oranges into perfect moons, just so the juice wouldn’t stain your fingers. I’ve watched you laugh at books I’ll never understand, but never asked you to understand why I cried over a single comma.
Maybe I fear love isn’t mutual, it’s just mirrored. Maybe I keep loving people who are only evernlooking at themselves in the glass I become for them. Still, I’d peel oranges for you, again and again. But, Would you bookmark the page of the book I was reading if I accidentally fall asleep?
-aaditya
Aaditya Bajpai 