The Instagram Project:Regrets In Love

"Why did you start writing?" I asked him.
Judging by his intriguingly detailed write ups I have always adored, I was expecting some deep reflections on how it fulfilled him.
"To impress a girl." He replied rather coyly.
I laughed at his unexpected answer. For a moment there I glimpsed the young boyish persona hidden beneath the facade of a formidable college student.
"And did she get impressed?" I enquired
"I don't know." He shrugged. He remained silent for a few minutes
"You know, I have to prize words out of your mouth. I thought for someone who wrote a lot you would talk as much." I replied as the silence prolonged.
He laughed.
"She liked my writings. She kept asking me when the next write ups would be due."
"So it kept you motivated to write more?"
"Yeah. Sort of. I wanted to build up that image of a writer for her. To impress her. I wrote because of her. I wouldn't claim myself to be a writer. But I am happy I am doing it. Writing makes me happy."
I noticed he talked just like he wrote, not giving away everything all at once; with a little bit of mystery here and a little bit of a lover's longing there.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
I was again met with silence. But I sensed something had shifted. I felt he was giving me a preamble of silence before letting everything out. So I waited.
"I loved her." He broke the silence after a while.
"I loved her so much it consumed me. She consumed my thoughts, and I was lost in a myriad of burning feelings exploding inside me."
"But a friend of mine also loved her dearly," He continued, "I thought it was best not to confide in her about my feelings."
He paused for a minute.
"But my love for her welled up inside me threatening to break out. I didn't know of any other way to channel it but to write. So I wrote. I wrote about love. I wrote about loss. I wrote about loneliness and everything in between. I wrote until the words seared inside me. I wrote so I wouldn't have to tell her how much I loved her and how much it pained me not to be with her. I wrote hoping I could forget her."
"I left to join a college and saw it as a good opportunity to put some distance between us. I thought the distance would lessen the intensity and blunt my pain. But my writings grew longer and fiercer. I walked around with that pain."
His words resonated the pain he felt.
"But I met somebody else and she distracted me from the pain. I grew closer to her."
"So did you move on from your first love?" I asked
"Later on I came to know that she loved me too. But it was too late by then. So now I walk around trying to salvage the guilt and regret. Days blurred on and the only thing I remembered was writing. I wrote to find redemption from regret."
"How do you feel now?" I asked
"Broken. Aching. Lugging around an omnipresent pain."He paused."But satisfied." He added.
"Satisfied? How?" I asked
"Without her, I wouldn't have started writing. I wouldn't still be writing" He replied
"Do you still love her?" I asked
"I don’t think we ever stop loving. We might pause. We might meander away. But in the end, we keep coming back to it like a sea joining the ocean"
"But I try to move on. Or so I’d like to tell myself. It's a lie I like to repeat to myself. I don’t think I really want to move on from her. I’d like to keep this love tucked away in some deep dark corner of my heart and feel its pangs like tremors from time to time"
I felt I had prodded him enough. I didn't want to go on further.
"I still have your book with me. ‘Nandithayude Kavithakal’. I am sorry I couldn't return it back to you"
I smiled and reassured him back that I was in no hurry to get it back. It was, after all, a book of poems written by a heartbroken lover. It was in safe hands.