Bird of Steel

  When I was much much younger, I used to read fairytales. I marvelled at the princesses' gowns. I beheld the princes' arrivals with sheer ecstasy. And as each tale would end with a "and they lived happily ever after", my fantasies would begin.
  As I grew up, I wanted to fall in love. I was too naïve. But one day, there stood love...knocking at my door.
  It took me some time to believe that this was love. Not just because it didn't exactly come in a very pretty form, but because, it was my first time. I tried to test it - to see if it was true at all. Yes, perhaps I had been silly - but one can't blame me! It was my first time!
  And then I changed. Life became a whirlpool of fancy. I had my first kiss under the rain. I laughed, loved and believed.
  I remember the evening I got Ted - my tiny, white teddy. I was asked to never part with it, to know that as long as Love is with me, the teddy too is. I remember the sweetness in the spring breeze as we hugged after that. Or maybe it was the sweetness of first love. I haven't parted with Ted. It sits there on my bookshelf, its arms spread wide, that same wistful look in its eyes as the first time I had seen it.
  I remember the afternoons spent indoor. The laughter and the honey-warm hugs. The sessions before the mirror - together. I remember the four-seated swing in the park, where we both sat on the same side, making the swing roll over, and then laughed at each other.
  I remember the scars on his hand - the number of times I hurt him - and the number of times he felt he had hurt me. The butchered skin on his legs that I nursed a whole afternoon. I wasn't used to blood. It shocked me. As did a confession one evening in April.
  I was in an abyss lighted with love. It felt safe as a cocoon, till he told me, my love hadn't been enough. Someone else had loved him better. I was thrown out into the darkness of the world. My sweet, little cocoon was gone.
  I don't know why he returned after that. He made new promises in fresh blood. He said he wanted to bridge the distance that had been created. He wanted to make love.
  I believed him. I believed he was just mine now. I believed there was noone else. I do not know if I was right or wrong. But, one day, he stopped asking to make love. I saw doubt shadow his eyes. My love wasn't pure, they said. It had a history before him, they said. But, he was my first love - my very first.
  The gap grew and grew. I began to despise my own body. For a very short phase, revenge paced my blood. I started looking everywhere for that sweetness of his embrace. No hug seemed like his. Despite everything, his was the hug i could trust my life with.
  I learnt to smile just on the outside and make it seem real. People were fooled. At nights, my pillow muffled my howls and my only friend was my brother.
  A year passed. I slowly grew inert. For a long time I wondered if I should hide the past I had now created for myself. For a long time I did hide it. Now I know, I shouldn't. And i won't.
  The one year I lived alone gave me nerves of steel. I learnt to live on my own. I returned to my family. Tried to become who I once was - that naive little girl with the dreams of a hundred fairytales in her head. Most probably I turned into something much harder. Life returned to normal. The only thing I couldn't do was - listen to music.
  Then, absolutely dramatically, with some stray wind, came in a bard. He sang his way into my soul - right through the armour of steel. And it felt like first love all over again. Some wise guy had said, you know its your last love when it feels like your first. It feels just like that.
  But after a long time, I was reminded of that smile today. My mind has been dizzy ever since. I cried on seeing Ted. I had flashes of moments spent together. Of course it all ended with the sting of betrayal replaying before my eyes. Maybe, memories of first love always just stay,because the first time, they are written in the darkest ink. The one that is hardest to remove.
  And the last time? By then the brain cells are all filled. So, the memories are engraved on the heart with chisel and knife. If love leaves this time, the heart just stops cold and dead.