Beyond The Photograph

Phrose

I wouldn't love him without me. By all that means, I would never love him if he weren't with me. It was not supposed to be interpret literally. There was just a strong bond tightening us for so long, and once it was cut, we would not be once we were meant anymore. I loved us, but I didn't love him. I loved me and him for being us. We were an entity and I loved us for the whole. If I loved him, I would love him as a part of us. Nothing to question anymore.

I never thought of loving anybody. Monogamy love consists of unbearable pain and accumulation of disenchantment. I committed myself not to love anybody, any man (because I am one of those heterosexual bitches), except they want to be as us. I decided to stop that kind of egocentric way of love because I have realized that whenever I told someone I loved him, I was unconscious to the fact that I only love the moment, the feeling, the longing, and the essence of the togetherness we shared. Once he were gone, I would do nothing regarding to his absence. I would only love us within our bittersweet memories that would still linger. Because the memory was just the representative of us ourselves.

So, for him, it's just the same. I didn't love him, I loved us. I started to love us the moment he asked me where to find the cafeteria with smoking area in my campus (because actually he's not a smoker, and he hated smoker, he only looked for a friend of his). I started to love the first moment that involved us, he and I, walking across the campus sport center, the public library, the campus hall, and eventually we could reach the cafeteria with the smoking area in it. Later on, we recognized, that a friend of his he attempted to meet was actually a friend of mine. It was just ridiculous because 30 minutes before I had just walked across the places mentioned above, from there. 

For many uncountable months later, we always had nostalgic ritual after we made love, to laugh over the time we accidentally met. With the smokes from my half-finished cigarette filling the air, and his eyes catching me without flickering, we shared the warmest intimacy that two creatures could solemnly aspire. We got pleasure of our lust in his 3x4 meters room he had rented for almost four years. The small pleasure of privacy we could only afford meant nothing more than just a freedom. I even was accustomed to the smell of ginger tea he loved to drink that voraciously filled the room he owned. 

We always made love three times a week. The date was always scheduled. He said that sex was just a matter of needs we were urged to get annually just like foods we ate and water we drank. Although I was not virgin anymore at the time we met, I still got dumbfounded in disbelief on how possible I could meet a man who wasn't hypocrite by not associating sex with sins. We shared the same thoughts on how people should accept the fact that sex wasn't a taboo. 

"Sex is just as important as foods, and drinks, and all the spiritual needs." He said with his bare voice and javanese accent. Then, his body leaned against my chest and whisper with his mouth in front of my eyes, "it doesn't matter whether you're virgin or not. I don't care how many times you have had sex, or whether you're nymphomaniac or not. Virginity is a social construct and it seems unfair to define someone based on how many time they had sex."

It was the first time we made love, the time I told him I wasn't virgin anymore. I was always afraid of being labelled sinner whenever I got involved in any kind of sentimental relation with someone. It was just because I lost my virginity before the wedding day. Living in a country where we should consume hypocrisy everyday sucks. People keep preaching about morality while at the same time they keep lowering their own desire through the act of increasing the dose of perpetual religious rituals.

"You can have sex with anyone as long as you want, so do I." He added.

"I guess I should start believing in God again to express my gratitude for having you as us in my life." I told him and he kissed me.

***

My heart always palpitated whenever he looked at me in the eyes from a far. It was just like his loving voice kept echoing on my mind and it wouldn't stop. Although I kept telling myself that I didn't love him, I still couldn't avoid the tendency to be dependent towards our sentimental romanticism. I started to miss him every time he went out of town, or yearn of his touch whenever he got lots of work to do. I was languorous whenever I had to spent the days without his company. I detested his absence.

His job as a photographer demanded some spaces for freedom. Even though he had taken thousand of pictures, among any of those, there wasn't me. "A photograph reflects the ones they are sure of losing," he tenderly told me whenever I asked him why he wasn't attempted to take pictures of me, or when he always refused whenever I asked him to take pictures of me. He slightly added, "I am sure I will not lose you because I will not let you go. People take pictures of those that they think they might forget. I will not let myself forgetting you. That's why I don't want to take a picture of you. You're beyond the photograph."

I couldn't figure out why his outspoken words could easily impressed me all the time. Both of us were illuminated with the impossibilities we once thought we would have. We lessened each wound we had. We were equipped to the warm nuances we always created. I already dived down into the ocean of his soul, and he already swam across the river of my veins. We demanded, then we fell down.

I never decided to move in with him. Our free-spirited soul needed space to be free from anything else. But, the frequency of me visiting his place was quiet often than him visiting mine. I loved the largest window his room had that opened to the landscape of mountains and hills. During the evening, I liked to stand in front of the window, with a cup of hot chocolate, divinely admiring the twilight. Usually 15 minutes later, he would arrive home and cooked for our dinner. We would talk anything from our perverted sexual thoughts to political headlines. After a couple of hours we would make love in fervor. We would posses each other as we became one.

I always loved the quintessential things we had as he was actually the tune of our nocturne we played. I was always overwhelmed with our sentimental emotion. I was beguiled in love we had composed. I once imagined us without him and started to question: to whom shall I spell the name amongst the days and nights? To whom I shall value this utter exquisite if none of him charmingly exist? I realized that the more days rolled by, the more I was afar from loving us. I realized that I might still love us, but I started to love him more, and it was something I forcefully avoided.

"How do you love us?" I nonchalantly asked him, the morning we just woke up. I could see his sun-kissed eyes slowly opened. Although it was a difficult question to answer, still after the long windy years we were together, I bravely asked about that to him.

"I love us within my admiration of each inch your skin surprised my consciousness." He, then, kept kissing the pale skin of my hands. "I love us within the lunacy your voice could occur to me," he slightly added. "I love us in the way I crave your body and soul every time. You have bewitched me."

I could feel the presence of his skin touching mine in a very gentle manner. And his dry lips pressing mine. The taste of ginger tea filled my mouth through, the taste I always loved. Whenever I look back to the moment we were possessed into one, I always end up with a pair of moral value of lovers not to let themselves being drowned into a pool of temporal dependency.

"And how do you love us?" He asked.

I stared at him voicelessly. It apparently took seconds until I opened my mouth and murmured. "I love us in the moment I always wait you to arrive home every evening." He glanced to me, and I got myself close to his ears, grasping his body backwards. "I love us because I can have you to end my day."

"Well, shall I begin to end your day this morning?"

I eventually smiled.

***

Everything was just so perfect although as the day went by, I lost my own idealism I had persistently idolized to loving an entity rather than a creature. I began to forget that things were temporary. It led me into another long days to spend whenever I wasn't with him. The dullness life could achieve, the repetitiveness interactions with other people could occur, the boredom of music could annoy, are the examples of my own laxity then. There was just an intense fear I had whenever I thought that he would grow tired of me. So that, I tried to be as innocent as I could be. I tried to be so pleasant.

If there is a maturity that we can pinpoint from the moments we've created and the times we've shared, it's the acceptance and sincerity we've tried to envelop ourselves with. He could wander off too far in months to capture new things, and I could disappear for a while only to solemnly write something. We never argued in complaints of each other absence. It might occur temporal emptiness, yet we always knew where to find home and look for each other. We shared the significant, and stagnant understanding to each of us.

Things were fine until an envelope of letter arrived.

There was just any particular essence of feeling to long for your presence. I still yearn for you. He wrote in the letter he sent to me after five months of his leaving for Central Africa. He didn't usually write whenever he left me for months or even almost a year. He always asked me to let him surprise me whenever he came home with the explosion of joyous merry-making each other had. But although I have hardly tried the most possible way not to find an embodiment of our togetherness with something else, then I still failed. You were the grace I used to possibly long for. That's how I used to feel. 

The rest of it surprised me. It was just saddening to find out the fact that our favorite serial drama came close to the ending. I knew our time was just so close to end. It was excruciatingly painful to enjoy the rapid mourning that occurred. I was shocked because of the coldness of plenty of hours after that. The loneliness and the emptiness were blended into a heartbreaking ceremony I wish I could escape from. I was left voiceless. I fell asleep with my own comfortable pain.

***

17 days after that he went home. While I was watering the cactus I gave him as a present for his last birthday, he opened the door and captured a picture of me. The sound of blitz from his camera filled the room. I stood ajar. I spoke no word. The burst of sun light from the window glowed the half of his face, while the other was darkened due to gloom that occupied. I let him capturing myself. I already knew this was the last chance for me to see him. 

He didn't lie about the things he said about photographs. He was only not sure of us, in this case, of me. He was just so careless saying that I was beyond the photograph. Because the truth was, he already figured out the fact, that he might forget me in a blink of an eye. He needed pictures of me because I had became the things he was afraid to forget. 

I let him capture each inch of my pale skin, from head to toe. I believed that his lens could magically turned things into the most creative artworks human could produce. He ran to me and we made love afterwards. He took off my dress and carelessly threw it somewhere. Still wearing his suit and all the thing that was with him, he gently touched my naked body.Within the knowledge of being submissive, I positioned myself as pleasant as possible to him. 

It was the very last, and the longest possession we could have had. His kiss felt quiet bittersweet to me as the memories of us rushing into my mind. We said goodbye without actually pronouncing any words of it. This was terrible but we were succeed to celebrate the festive of farewell joyously. During this time I discovered how silence could speak louder than words.

The moment I woke up with an insane headache, he's already gone. Without words, sounds, and footsteps to follow. The time I was awaken, I realized that he would never come back in any possible way he could be. The room, the corner, and the window promised that. I felt something gnawed my bones too deep and occurred the unavoidable ache I couldn't fathom. The sunlight slipped into the window that was left opened, and the wind tenderly touched my face. How I couldn't let myself not to cry.

***

I never thought that it didn't need much time to recover. I was once left being devastated, now I am surely fine. The years roll by, the life still ambles, and I've got much changing. As I drive my car, I can see much development of the city. The campus building has been renovated. The building where he used to live a long time ago has been destroyed and changed into a new modern and luxurious blocks of apartment. The sky isn't as clear as I could capture in the past, and I can't even listen to the sound of birds clattering between the woods near his old place (because the woods have been cut and replaced into a swimming pool). I rarely find pedestrians on the street because mostly people use cars and motorcycles to mobilize. 

I finally understand in the end that the love for him is currently temporal. I might love him, but now I only love us. He and I were once an entity and I love us for once being whole. If I should have loved him again, I would love him as a part of us. Nothing to question anymore. 

But still, I can't even forget the figure he once had possessed. I can even see him vividly through the door that's left open, or through the eyes of a child that is burst into laughter. I never forget the look on his face, the way it feels to gently touch his unshaved beards, or perhaps the curve of his strong muscles. I still remember how heartwarming his smile could delight my day, or how awful his grim could darken my day. I still like envisioning each moment I have had with him. Yet, I don't need any medium to memorize all of them, because he is the one I am sure I will not forget. I don't need to capture him on pictures, because he is beyond the photograph.

Purwokerto, December 11 2016

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