What About What If? Poem by Sanjana Swaroop

They call people like me ‘overthinkers' but I much rather
Prefer if they called us, ‘dreamers'.
Was it so wrong of me to dream about a what if with you?
What if we weren't both as scared?
To touch, to talk, to feel, to breathe, to be, to heal.
What if we weren't both as scared?
To speak up and claim space, and show each other our growth and grown up face.
I kept on wishing for a moment alone with you.
I guess we were both dreaming instead of being,
While in each other's company.
I couldn't get a string of sentence from you,
So I punctuated our silences with daydreams and a bit of surrealism.
The hazy clouds lifted me from our altitude retreat
Into my personal retreat.
I daydreamed of a conversation with you, as you sat
Silently right in front of me.
Occasional glances and stolen looks, that teetering smile,
Sometimes brought me back to the now.
But all the while, I would find it easy to drift into the dream state,
Where we were speaking and there wasn't this electric spate.
‘Why are you mad? ' You had asked.
I huffed and puffed and then laid down the laundry list of issues I had with you.
‘Does open communication scare you so? '
You apologized and said ‘but I had to see you'.
I ask you ‘why? '
There is that smile again. That damned smile.
Lodged in my memory, in between the rough parts of my early days.
That damned smile that has haunted me from 13.
Unlucky number 13. Or the only smile I witnessed in all my travels,
That could make me forget my own thoughts. Lucky smile from unlucky 13.
Stop that now.
I disconnect from now, and go back to our conversation.
Hmm, you were just about to tell me ‘why? Why did you say that you had to see me?
Why did you keep bumping into me on an open and empty road at night?
Was it night blindness or was it you craving to touch me?
Did you feel the sparks then too?
Then why did you move away your knee when I touched you?
Why did you recoil from my touch and distance yourself by a mile? '
You look at me befuddled, both in the here and the now.
In the here, you apologize for your behavior, touch your hair as you so often did
Break into yet another forbidden smile and say
‘You oftentimes don't know the words, and you're no Mark Antony.
You're afraid to express in front of someone so eloquent, lest your words
fall short of all you're wanting to say'.
I nudge you to say it anyway. Silence still, in the here and now.
In the now, your expression darkens. You think I am lost.
I am faraway. But I never been more present than here.
You touch your hair and my heart aches with an ache of early days.
Should things really be this complicated?
I shake myself, break off from your glace now and go back to our conversation.
We droned on about other things.
Avoidance at its best.
Even in my imagination, I couldn't think of what you might say.
Forever afraid to hear you speak, the words that could potentially wound me,
I let our silence rest now.
An echo, then background noise, I hear the words uttered,
‘Why is she here? '
With a single tear and a broken heart, I tell you in the here,
‘So that I never have to wonder, what about what if? '
Now, I get up and leave, having never found the answers to my questions,
But knowing that dreams taste better than reality.
I showed up. You did too. I was silent. So were you.
Life is rarely so gracious to afford us second chances and do overs and new beginnings.
But I never need to wonder, what about what if? Not with you.
Occasionally, I know I can still meet you here.
Was it so wrong of me to dream about a what if with you?