the black wind

I was jealous. I still am. But I realized it only now. Now, I could detach that dirty leech from where it got stuck inside me; sucking blood. Examine its slimy sluggish back, and the killing teeth. The filthy worm of jealousy. The stone that weighed my heart down, the damp cold that crept into my insides, I could realize only now that it was jealousy. For it took me time to grasp what the odd unfamiliar anger that was rising through my lips was. I had to swim across a sea of bewilderment. Gasping and trying to float about, with only emptiness to hold on to, finally to acknowledge and behold that shore of understanding. I swam across, in my persistence to unearth the name of this new tornado of emotion. An undesired thorn that pricked my little rose heart. The surge of protest, that I felt, that war that I wanted to unleash on you for remembering her, any her, for even that split second. If I had my way, I wouldn’t have let anyone, any her, take a tiny space in your heart that ought to have been mine. If I was the wind goddess, I would’ve let my tempest sweep her away, to a far away where you will never see her again. If I was the queen of beauty, I would never have anyone surpass me, for then, you will have eyes only for me. I fumed like a volcano. My lips parted in fully formed angry words, against someone I did not know. Words that I had never said before, took shape swiftly in my mind to thrash the unknown her, to shred her to pieces.


When I reached the shore, all wet and dripping, I realized I had been here before. Innumerous times. For this was the infamous land of jealousy, where I had had to visit when I sulked coz my playmate flaunted her new colourful toy that I wanted. When my eyes welled up with big tear drops when three out of four thingummies from the charming shop was given to the other kid and not me. When the girl next seat’s birthday sweets were tastier than those I had for mine. This l'l villain that attacked me today, was strange but. It dint have the playful innocence of the old childhood ones. And it was not the kind of jealousy when your friend is back from a dream travel like yours and says he just had the time of his life. Not the kind that you have when you see the other girl wearing the midnight blue gown that you so coveted.


I thus searched the land for the real culprit, realisation dawning over me that this wasn't the usual green eyed jealousy. Mine I found was the king of all goons of this land, that sat in the black jeweled throne in the central part of the kingdom. The only one which was blessed by the God of emotions to churn the visitors in its most terrible tornado. The only one that had the power of crushing. For this was the kind of astonishing jealousy deep down in the central part of your heart, that made your heart throb in pain. Yes, that was the key. This jealousy was surprising. Inexplicable. The kind of thing, you want to deny having, to the end of the world, until you found no other way out of it. The kind of jealousy that leaves you spent. And you only had the bitterness in your heart, that you want to unleash at someone. But if you did, you would reproach yourself, coz you are waiting for the wind to go away and then see. See, after the haze from the hurricane is gone. There was nothing that you could do. Only, just wait for it to end, the rough tempestuous wind that is blowing with rocking gusts, making your heart rattle. That makes you weak. And this is where I was. And I still am. Until the wind dies down.