Let's run away?

 Our lives had brutally changed in the past three weeks. We had been posted to a God forsaken place in the East. It had all been painstaking to travel, then locate our new haven but setting up our house was a dream come true. We had been married for three months and 17 days to be exact and placing the “Mannat Amteshwar Sandhu” board on the entrance proved everything worth the effort. My green apple sanitizer’s fragrance desperately tried to mask the stench of our freshly whitewashed MES accommodation.

We spent the whole day dealing with his trophies, cut glass crockery, curtains, kitchen counter repairs and tracking his beloved Apache.
The night was dark and the moon was the only light when I went for the assemblage of my library.  I couldn’t help but marvel at the biblical books of medicine and my astounding  collection of novels, that I had hoarded all my life, look like relics in the museum. Amteshwar called out for me and I peeked at him with pride and contentment through the store room cum library’s door. He entered the cozy room and beamed ear to ear because he saw me struggling, while trying to hang the fairy lights. So, he effortlessly picked me up and facilitated my decorative idiosyncrasies. As poetic as he is, he said he was holding the star lit sky in his arms and found no reason for hanging fairy lights in the house. He made me feel like the luckiest woman alive, living upto his wedding vows. He caught me smiling and put me down gently. That is when I saw a neatly folded piece of paper at the foot of my book shelf. It was a letter that had changed our lives forever and given us our happy ending. I picked it up, and blushed like a teenager. He knew what it was and asked me to read it to him. I said, “Sorry, I don’t do back story!” He threw me an annoyed glance, picked me up and rushed to the bedroom. He threw me on the bed and before we could go all ‘fifty shades of grey’, he sat down beside me, touched my hand and I climbed on his lap. He held me as we read the last letter I had written to him. I was proud but bewildered when he was about to leave the academy to join the Infantry, just like his father.

Dearest best friend,
To the man who is always there when it matters, for the big things and the little ones. Every hour, every moment of the day, I will always adore you with all my heart and love.
You say that I have a way with words but the truth is I find that way when I’m with you. It’s overwhelming to describe the strength and tenderness I feel in your presence. From the evenings in crowded markets, when you stand like an immovable wall between troublesome people and I. To the way your eyes fight your way back to mine, only to find me staring dumbly up at you, on being shoved away at the airport. You give me the courage to believe in you, when everything is falling apart, because I know you’ll be there to help me pick up the pieces later.
Tormented by the responsibilities of the world, I’ve always leaned on your strength.  Your willingness to go through tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings to keep us together, washes away my insecurities and makes me happy. You  showed me that happiness requires struggles.  It grows from problems. I respect you for not giving up till you make joy sprout out of the ground like roses and rainbows even in the face of adversity.
It’s ironical that you like to call yourself a poet. I revere you like God. A supreme light in an ocean of darkness, who has loved me like a lover, protected me like his daughter and cared for me like a mother. I reproach you, every time you write about immortalising me in your poetry, only to be discovered when you die. I need you to know, I’m not your muse but a part of you which will turn to ashes with you.
I will never muster the courage to tell you this, so I’m bleeding anguish on this fragile piece of paper.  I hope it will find it’s way back to me. Someday, Maybe?
 In these ten short months, you’ve made me believe in magic, stars, the universe and myself. The ground breaking truth is that I love you. It’ll ache my heart to see you board the train to rest of your life with some else.
They say love’s a winding road,  but if we both walk towards it, we’ll end up together. I swear on Peppermint tea, I’m trying to be poetic here.
May I have the splendid honour of asking you;
Will you run away with me and write poetry for a living ?