FOREPLAY

Yes, she's the woman in the prose-

“Appearing nine years ago, in her brother's snake-skin jacket

And then on, in dreams”

Winnie's first impulse is to tear apart the page

That seems to have ripped apart her soul

But she is restrained only with bewilderment

Or something like that

How, she wonders, could anyone so gifted,

Anyone who could write a sentence like that,

Be so enormously sad

Maqbool, the wistful, who made the two incomprehensible films

And then nothing else

The boy of such genius

But also such strangeness, such raving madness and unfathomable sorrow

And to tell the truth, Winnie is also, terribly flattered

“He insists on a version of me that seems so tempting to believe really”

He makes her ingenuous, funny, enigmatic, profound, beautiful

Something she is

And she isn't

So much so that one can't help but admire that he is the only one who appreciates the intrinsic her

That only he can

“See through the very folds of my soul”

But then she realizes it's not about her

At all

He sees everyone like this

Like a fictional character he imbibes certain attributes with-

1. ingenuous, 2. funny, 3. enigmatic, 4. profound, 5. beautiful, etc.

But even then, for the few moments that linger after reading,

She starts believing in them

She reads on then

Not to lose herself

But to keep herself

She knows that like those before, this moment of weakness too, shall pass

She knows that the half hour trek has lasted eight years, a chapter and fifty pages

She knows that in ninety seconds from now, she will close the book and join Amar in bed

She knows that the possibility of another future had got over, nine years ago

She knows that he too, in his own way, is slowly but undeniably, getting over her

She knows that at this moment, he is most likely, fucking some impressionable intellectual in LA

She knows that he will win at least the Pen/ Faulkner for this one

She knows him too well

She knows that they will never again make love to each other

She knows that the relationship they have left now

Is only

Metaphysical