Amelie

By Aastha Nagi

But something about her was so distant. Yet you could feel her everywhere. You could feel her presence when she was in the room but sometimes when you would look into her eyes, you could see that she was never quite there. She was a wanderer of worlds, but she was never ever lost, and if she was it was on purpose. She would be acting. But in the back of her mind she would have the map of the roads memorised like the back of her hand. She travelled between worlds and only the luckiest got to be a part of them. 

What a tragedy to be so lucky and not realise it. 

And sometimes when she would look at you, you would be scared because you would know that she could see right through you, through every piece of ugly swarming underneath your clothes, through every part of you, even the ones you don't recognize, even the ones you do not know exist. 

But I liked how free she was. It takes a hell of a courageous  woman to piss off people just by her mere existence. Because she was wild, a rebel, loud in the quietest way possible that her mere dark eyed stare could silence the room. And they would all say they hated her. But what they truly meant was that they were envious of her. Of her freedom inside her skin, of the fact that she stood on the world while they tiptoed, of her intelligence, of all the words they could not predict would come out if she opened her mouth, of her power. Of her presence. So they would say they hated her but what they truly meant was they feared her. She intimidated them. 

But she was so wild, in the way that she kept her hair, in the way she walked, in the way she stared right back at men twice her age, in the way she thought. And they would often mention her to be the one with the bad reputation because they were too immature to understand the greatness of the freedom that comes with a bad reputation. 

And she was aware, well behaved women rarely made history. 

She was pissing them off, all the time, but if you asked her their names, she could not tell you one. Because they simply did not exist to her. 

She was a creator of worlds of characters of beauty of love, and she liked her feminine carpenter hands and fingers.

And when she lit a cigarette and looked into the distance, you would want so badly to be the one she looked at, and she would share her cigarette with you, but if you looked closely, you are not there. Not with her. She is not there. She is somewhere far. Far from here. Somewhere you don't know and you can't reach. She belongs with the stars. 

And there was so much allure surrounding her. In her smirk in her gaze that they often compared to death. She did not talk much, not because she had nothing to say, not because she was scared, but because she did not want to, because you do not deserve it. Because you are too small for her. Your pettiness, your boring life, your sulking, your lack of passion, your lack of thought and emotion and ambition and intelligence is too small for her new york world. I always had a feeling that even if I somehow managed to get inside her I would not find my way out, partially because I would be lost in the enormity of her and partially because I would not want to. 

She would not talk much and she would not lift her eyes much because you were never much to look at for her, but sometime she would catch you looking at her and she would look back and there would be black under her eyes all the time and now you will never be able to get the ash of her eyes out of you. And sometimes she would look when you were not looking, and think about your bones and all the things she knew about you that you have no idea about, she would look at the movement of your fingers and your eyeballs. And thats it. Because you dont know she is looking. 

And she was alive, so alive you could never tell how many times she almost was not. And when she would die, the smart ones would thank the lord and raise their wine glasses and say “god that woman truly lived.” with serenity in their voice. And the real ones would laugh with tears in their eyes as they would recite her sacred stories that were everyday moments to her. And no one would know that the whole funeral is a prank. 

And she was dreamy, you could see it when she smiled, and you could tell that her dreams were hers, and be it the nightmares eating her out alive, she would never tell you. But I know she wanted to. 

And she was smart, smarter than anyone you have ever had, smart to the point you don't know how smart she truly was. Smart with the all the book she read, and smart with all the secret pathways she found to that place, and smart in the way she covered the greatest blood shows, smart in the way she handled the cruelty of human and life, smart in the way she is the one who stole, smart in the way she is your greatest enemy and your greatest lover but you will never find out. Because she won't let you. 

And she is so quiet, you forget that she is suffering, and she smirks so perfectly, you forget it is not a smile, and she is so content, you dont know she is starving. And she fights for women like it is breathing, feminist you call it, you dont know she does not talk to her mother. 

And when you are doing something wrong, you probaby should not do it infront of her. Because she will speak up. And if you touch her she will cut your hands off. 

But her eyes will seduce you, till you want to be something that is close to her world if not inside her world, till you want to crawl to her and she will toy you, and she will maybe make you think she loves you, because she knows how to love, and she knows you, and she is smart enough to know she does not need to relate the two to actually make a statement or action. Because she cant tell herself, if it is all a game or if she is real. So she will ask you to breathe, because she is not actually in love with you, even though she just now kissed your scars and your past and drank ever single one of your tear as she held you within her arms, she is not actually in love with you, she has noticed the leaks in your boat and she want the ocean. She is bored. 

And she was only here because you were lucky enough to have the stars write her name out in your story, she was only here because she had a purpose with you, knots to tie within you that you can never untie and that eventually will blend into your bones and you will die with. She was only here to show you, to teach you, 

To 

Make

You. 

And now you are forever altered by her and anyone who tries to know about you after her will have to learn her inorder to learn you. She is engraved in your bones, lips, skin, soul and skull. And you can not forget her, erase her even though her absence left you haunted. And you kind of dont even want to. She is engraved in the roots of you that go deep down to hell, and she will be inside every new leaf and stem of you that you grow that go up to heaven. 

She is a visitor and you were a stop, she likes to see places and she does not know how long her list it, but she is aware that it is long, she must keep moving, she must keep going, they are waiting for her, her purpose is fulfille, she is bored of you, she has given you her gifts, she has embraced you, she must leave now, to her next destination, to her next lover, till she gets to new york. 

And you can hate her all you want, tell her she is heartless for leaving, but in the back of your mind, you know you are the small one here, you are the weaker one here, and she will bloom and you will rot, in the back of your mind you know that even though she is running, she is running with the wolves, not from them. She loves the wolf. You are scared of them. She tames them. 

She was a mystery, she loved them so much that she became one, but it was not her fault, she was never trying to seduce you, even though she knew that she was. 

She was never trying to outsmart you, even though she knew she was. 

She was never trying to be one step ahead, she just was. 

She was not trying, even though she was, harder than any of us, but we would never know that.

You were too small, your feet would not reach her ground, you could not swim inside her, you would drown. And even if you talked to her everyday for a lifetime. You would still not know her. Because there is so much she has not told you, and she keeps you on line, she makes sure you are aware that you know nothing. 

And she cries herself to bed everynight, and she finds comfort in her illness and in her sadness, and she is in love with this one person so madly, and she is bleeding, and she wants to be held and she wants to be hugged and she wants to be loved, wholly, by one. Only one. She does not care about you all, you dont exist to her, she has her own world, you are definitely not living in it. But her world is not empty, even though she is, her world is beautiful, and god grace and loves those who are in it. The chosen ones. The ones who will she will love like they fit in the palm of her hand. Her freezing hand that is keeping you warm. But she wants one. Only one. One that is only hers. She does not want to share the one, and she wants to love, and she wants to be loved. 

She is the embodiment of her love

And of everything and anything. 

If she wants you enough 

If she is ready to open up her wounds and her beauty marks and her birth marks to you. 

If you are lucky enough. 

But you will never know it

You dont know her

You never will 

Amelie.  

And she would always look at herself liek she was on the edge of madness, and you would often describe her as that too, the crazy bitch in her beautiful clothes and style, and she could never quite tell what was real and what wasnot, and she always felt like her rage would take over, and she would end up bleeding again, or making someone bleed. She was always on the edge of madness. Sometimes even was the embodiment of madness. But arent the women who make history always are? Arent the the women who are muses of the greatest pieces of art always are? Are all the greatest minds to ever exist are? Disturbed? Madened? 

Her madness was not always the way you would assume it to be, sometimes it would be humming in crowds, sometimes it would be dancing without the music, but maybe the music was inside her, maybe it was there, we just could not hear it, but she could, because she is far greater and magical and all of us.  

By Aastha Nagi