Unfinished Puzzles

In another life I am not halfway loved.

My mugs and bottles never run out of water. I never know the price of petrol, highway tolls, or the fastest route to go home. Bills are paid on time Both sides of my bed are equally warm. Dogeared books, lego collections, and unfinished puzzles scatter throughout the house. Assorted worn clothes are stacked haphazardly in the laundry basket, waiting to be cleaned with the same brand of scented detergent. New toiletries are stacked in a special cabinet under the sink: my serums, your shaving creams, and our shower gel live in harmony before they eventually get taken away to be used.

In another life I am not full of longing.

Our yearning has a finality. A happy ending. Filled with wanted surprises, bleary-eyed discussion over salt bread and bubur ayam, bickering over the moral standing of certain fictional characters, sharing one set of pajamas, and frequent trips to one grocery shop thirteen kilometers away for that specific brand of yogurt and avocado oil. Arguments are impossible to be had as we only know forms of absolved disagreements. Territory of trust and judgement-free zone extend beyond our rooms. We trade off sympathy with assurance, incessant questions with lengthy explanations, concepts with identities, trust with zero judgement, and impossibility with inevitability. 

In another life I am never lonely.

We experience growing old together. Our smiling lines spilling over our teacups brimming with citrusy darjeeling tea and inside jokes. Evidence of happiness permanently written across our faces as deep valleys around our mouths and river branches on the corners of our eyes. We no longer speak in singular form, everything will always refer to the collective us or we. My skin is no longer interminably cold and your resting heartbeat is lower than ever. We tether ourselves to reality through handholding and constant absentminded yet intentional physical touches; frequent form of conviction that everything actually is permanently real and really permanent.

In another life, someone finally stayed.

In another life, we constantly choose one another over and over again.