And for a moment I was 16 again- a ridiculous and conflicting mixture of naivety, bashfulness, eagerness and excitement. How to be one emotion for a moment and to then metamorphose into something opposite the very next! But that’s how it was; that’s how it was different than all the other days that although, beautiful no less, were still beautiful a commonplace way; you pass by the same beautiful bush of rose every day and finally, you get plain used to it. You like it, but it no longer thrills you. You accept its soothing presence, but you no longer as much notice it consciously. This day was different; it was wild, exotic and dangerous. Like a rare flower you spot on the edge of a cliff, and get enticed despite the knowledge that it could prove to be lethal, that it could take your breath away in all literal sense, but you try to reach it all the same. You want to take a whiff of the unknown fragrance, experience its texture, perhaps get pricked by its thorns; it all comes to the fact that you want it, inspite of the risks. Most likely, you will not come back to this wild flower growing on the edge of a cliff, but right now it does not matter, right now you want to stifle any disconcerting thought like this. All that matters is the present, and at present I found myself peeping at the infinite drop, perched safely on the rock, with the flower in my hand. I had never thought it’d have happened, but it did.
A little more than two hours ago, I was pacing up and down, waiting for you where I had met you last. I thought of being a little mad at you for being so late, but decided against it-you were there now. I don’t think I was in love with you yet, and I don’t use the word frivolously like many others, but I was captivated alright. Perhaps, it would have worn out had I kept on meeting you or perhaps it could’ve transformed to love; who knows? But I never did meet you again. And you were no rose that I could pluck and take away with me, tuck it in my hair or hold to my lips. You were that wildflower that is alive only in wilderness. And I knew it all the time that you’d never belong to me just the way I’d never belong to you, and yet, I kept on pushing the thought away – hope is a strong thing after all! Maybe, I’d find a way to grow you in my own garden or maybe I’d become one like you, eventually; growing beside you, overlooking that cliff. So, I held on to my optimism, and held on to my present, and tried to make the most of it.
You had always been so taciturn that it was so difficult to know whether you even liked me. Of course, you smiled, but people smile not always when they want to, although I don’t mean to say that such was the case with you. You smiled to encourage, you smiled when you really wanted to, and when you smiled just for the sake of being polite, your eyes betrayed. If I said something you could not just agree to by any means, the smile instantaneously disappeared. I read every passing expression on your face and enjoyed it, even the fleeting look of slight disdain at the sight of my unmanicured nails. But I didn’t try much to make you like me either; most people bring out their best when they want to catch the attention of the one they want; I put on my rawest self- my imperfections, my silliness, my conservative convictions, even as I knew that they were in stark contrast to you. But what else could I do? Be something else? No, that has never been my style. So, puerile as I was, I continued to talk, while you continued to listen. Sometimes you added a line or two, sometimes you challenged my point of view, and I know that it gave you great relish, but that was it and after a while it was time to go. I did not want to go yet! But what could I do? The way I had met you, I was already far out of my territory and there was no question of foraying on my own, unless you chose to show me the way. You did. You held my hand and led me where I had been too scared to go. To the wildflower. But you were the wildflower too. You led me to you and made me see and experience a dimension I had so far known only vicariously, and you did so without pulling me out of my realm, without making me break all my boundaries. The first kiss of tender petals, the gushing wind on our skins, the cry of birds in the wilderness, the earth dropping below our feet and the sky caressing our foreheads. The dread, the excitement, the fulfillment.

My type of flower does not grow in the wilderness, but wildflowers can grow anywhere. Maybe, one day I’ll find you waiting for me, blooming in my courtyard. When you realize that I, despite my mundane domesticity am just as fierce, and rare in my own way.
When you realize that the solitude and freedom the wild offers can also mean loneliness.

I shall not however, wait endlessly and though you are rare, fragrant and beautiful, there are hundreds of flowers falling at my feet.