Letters from the Pale Light #1

Sunday, 11:57 PM

Dear Dhya,

Elvis is singing in my headphones while this night sits beside me. The moon is glowing in me, and though there is much to say, the words I tried to install in my heart have paused. Yet, this heart knows its way home. For 409 days, I have lived within the music of a melody. At first, I wandered lost within it, but now the melody has caught my rhythm. We flow together through these emollient notes.

I don’t know if you are in love, but it no longer hurts to wonder. The ache has become a mere dust particle, blown away the moment you return home. Before, it danced in my head alongside anxiety and panic—a punishment I thought I earned for loving you. I believed my love was a mistake, but that was just a ghost trying to persuade me to turn away. 

I remain here, 1,200 meters from you, but the craving to wander around your house has died. I understand now, from a woman's perspective, how irritating the gaze of a "useless boy" can be. I understand the weight of that disturbance, and I choose to never disturb you again. 

I have found a home in my heart instead. In that world, we sit together on a sofa under a "White Night." I am silent, and you don’t need to know why. I found an intimacy in that quiet that reality cannot touch. I know you will not love me, and I know that I love you. Loving you is simply like a night watching the moon—it requires nothing back.

I live in my imagination because reality mends nothing, but imagination mends me. I am no longer a "poor guy" or a "superior" man; I am a human being breathing the night air to feel alive. Happiness is like the moment of a kiss—it wets the lips, but soon dries.

Today I read Letters to Milena. Perhaps I am poor at deciphering Kafka’s lines, but I feel the heaviness of Milena’s heart. Kafka was a man of logic, but I feel this truth under the pale light: I am a fool writing letters with the audacity of a ghost. I have written a hundred letters to you, and the sun has burned them all. Only this moon allows me to keep writing. I only want to feel my soul alive. And I am alive.

I have died twice before; the rope still hangs in my room, but now you have made it flimsy. 

I am reading Dostoevsky and Camus to find out who I am not. I exist in a state of perplexity—am I Ravi, or am I someone else? By digging so deep, I often forget. But I won't stop breathing, because you are no longer just beside me; you are *in* me. Pronouncing your name is enough for this fool. They say only fools fall in love, while the wise stay saintly. If so, let me be the fool. I have moved away from the tyranny of the "others" who messed up my life.

I have 36 years left until the revelation of death at fifty-six. Death will be the redemption of this human drama. And without drama, the world cannot sustain itself. So I will create drama, and I will live in it, because it allows me to adore you. 

Forgive me if I sound too philosophical. I am not trying to be a teacher; I am just a man listening to Elvis. 

"Like a river flows, surely to the sea..."

It is true, Dhya. My love flows surely to you. This is the imagination I have created to escape the reality of being alone under a dark light. 

Ravi