Call It

I am laying all my cards down at the table. I'm laying them down and letting you know how this game is going to play out. We won't play poker, won't bluff. We won't Beggar My Neighbour or each other. No need for Blind Dons because my cards will be face up, for you to see clearly. We'll do no Crazy Eights, desperately trying to get rid of what we have at hand by throwing it into a discard pile. We've been discarded once. We know what it feels like. Let's pick ourselves up from there, shall we?

You've become used to playing Solitaire. I can guess it in the way it takes you all day to reply to my inbox message. The double ticks denote that the message is in. But it hasn't gone in. Because there's a whole lot of tick-tock-tick-tock before you compose the reply, probably a pause and finally, hit send. So I wait. Till you are ready to ping or beep or whatever me back. I know you will ping or beep or whatever me back.

There's a sweetness in that.

Like the sweetness in the way you love to eat biryani. Your unashamed gusto for potatoes, rice and mutton cooked in its own juices, cholesterol be damned! Or that you think meeting for coffee denotes a date but sharing a plate of French fries at midnight does not. I like the way you wear your tweed jacket, complete with leather patches on the elbow, while other men fidget in their Boss jackets and Burberry scarves. They preen by the bar while you patrol the barbeque buffet. I like that.

After dinner, when everyone is drunkenly singing by the bonfire, I like the way I can almost lean against you, the mulled wine swirling inside my head and you stand straight, waiting to be leaned on, not a single muscle twitching. Separated by a hair's breadth. I like the latent heat that emanates between us, bouncing off each other's voids, waiting on the possibility of convection. No detectable change in temperature. Just a flurry of invisible molecules emotion-charged. Most of all, I like the way our eyes meet across the table, unhurried, curious, interested.

So I'm laying my cards down at the table. Here's the Two of Hearts. No. Not for the two of us. To assure you that I won't be like your ex. Because, I've been alone for that many years, reforming myself in music, in dance, in words. I won't cling to you like she did. I can manage on my own as needed. You can be the King of Diamonds and I'll be the Queen of Spades. A soft element forced to become tough after undue pressure; I'll dig away till you are ready to yield. We'll make sense, you and I. Perhaps not a straight hand. But we can take turns to be the Ace or Joker. We're both intelligent
adults, ready to love again, to laugh a little.

There. All laid out. Go ahead. Call me on it.