Guys Like Me

Guys like me don’t know what it is like to not think

We will notice that flake of cracked paint stripping down from the wall of your room,
And keep smiling at the beauty of its erratic imperfection,
Eventually zoning out of a conversation and awkwardly asking you what the question was;

We will observe that insect struggling to crawl in a puddle of water on a rainy day,
And stare as she tries her best to balance her little body and keep her head afloat,
And feel sad about being unable to do anything to help her out;

We will ponder over that torn packet of chips lying alone on the ground of the local cafeteria,
Thinking what it had done to be left empty, lonely and constantly getting stomped over,
Thinking what it had done to deserve such a fate

For us, every person walking on the road with a backpack
Is a story

We collect these stories as we meet them through the day
And store them in red velvet jewellery boxes that we keep beside our beds,
We open them as we lie down and our eyes close
And we think
With dense, savoury thought bubbles
Popping out from within the pockets of our snuggly blankets
Like crispy, flavourful pakodas peeping out from the pores of the oil strainer

Guys like me express too much in green boxes,
Our WhatsApp is a travelogue, and every chat is a solivagant road trip 
Of paragraphs long and longer, of passions big and bigger,
With every description of what we feel
Expressed in the genuineness of random 2 am appreciation messages 
And the unabashed cruelty of truth bombs

We don’t drink before sending drunk texts
(We also don’t think before sending drunk texts)

So guys like me don’t hold back,
Our guns don’t have silencers,
We speak what we think (We speak exactly what we think)
And we assume that the people we love, love our lack of inhibitions

We are more wrong than right
We make mistakes as if that is our favourite hobby
We overthink, we overshare, we overdo
And we love you more than we love ourselves 

Guys like me will love and love and love
And not stop loving you even on our worst days
Because you mean more than the world to us
Even if we are “just good friends” for you

We love you without the need to fall in love with you
And we assume that the people we love, understand our love

Guys like me worry too much, and yet fear from telling you that we worry 
Because our concern gets mistaken for attraction and dependence
We eat our worries for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Despite knowing that our worries hurt us
Like having multiple servings of rabdi-jalebi at a Punjabi wedding 
Even after having an upset stomach the last time we did that

Guys like me say “Sorry” a lot and “Thank You” even more than that
And somehow still can’t manage to say them at the right time
We are sorry for a lot more things than we say we are
And our thank-yous seem repetitive and boring

We will cherish spending time with you alone
And never miss a chance to make you smile
And narrate stories with extreme attention to minute details
Like a Lucknowi saree-maker weaving his way through Chikankari silk

Guys like me don’t understand when they say “I’m emotionally hitting a wall”
Because for us, the problem is not that we lack emotions 
Our emotions are the heavy rains on a Bombay apartment
That flood the terrace and wait for paper boats to ride over them

Guys like me will walk on fire for you
And mean it when we say so
But somehow cannot convince you that our words are genuine
Because somewhere along the journey of history and literature
Walking on fire for someone has remained nothing but a figure of speech - 
Meaningless, unnecessary, …hyperbolic