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And yet, hand me a glass of pure vodka and ask me the same question, and I’d probably laugh too loud and slur, “Have a conversation with a pastor.”

Don’t get me wrong—I am the farthest thing from religious. But I would sit across from him and, very plainly, ask, “What does religion mean to you?”

“Religion,” he would begin, folding his hands as if holding something fragile, “starts with devotion.”

My gaze would linger on the ground, my mind running elsewhere—back to that December evening when we circled the same word like it was fire. I loved our little banters. I loved talking to you, traversing the threads of your mind as you unraveled them for me. Religion does, indeed, begin with devotion—to a god, the God, some god with a capital letter and an arrogance strong enough to move mountains—to the same God who, perhaps, could not bear the sight of the red string connecting my pinky to yours, one who could not answer the prayer I whispered every night: a rosary of pleases, a hymn stitched clumsily in your name, and unwritten letters that were destined to sit in your wallet.

If I were to stop and ask a lover the same question, his answer wouldn’t be too different. He would take your name—two syllables, a slight tilt of the chin, a few extra inches of height, a mole on the tip of your perpetually red ear, and a lifetime of your traces etched somewhere deep within my conscience.

And why shouldn’t he?

Is devotion not the path we walk toward submission?

And is submission not the slow art of placing your own ruin into someone else’s hands and calling it holy?

I truly am the farthest thing from religious.

I cannot help but feel the ghost of a smile creep up the corners of my lips as I lean further into that December evening. It was colder than usual. The sky was an artist’s wet dream, with hues of pink, purple, and orange splashed across the vast canvas. I stopped and pointed to the sunset. You smiled and took a picture. You were always good at filling your gallery with a myriad of our memories.

“What do you think God would say about me if he were to truly exist?” I asked.

“I didn’t think you were much of a believer.”

“I’m not. It’s just fun to think about.” I put a skip in my step and jumped forward to face you. “Now, tell me—what would he think?”

“I doubt he would spend so much time thinking about his creations.”

“Okay, but—”

“I mean, he has already done the job of creating you. Do you really expect the guy to spend more of his time pondering your existence? I’m sure he’s a busy man.”

“Oh, shut up,” I giggled, slapping your arm. “Okay, now give me a proper answer.”

“If he were to truly exist,” you began, shoving your fists deep into your pockets, brows furrowed in feigned concentration as the ghost of your chuckle lingered on your lips, “I think he would realize he can’t take it back.”

“Take what back?”

“You.” You glanced at me, quick and almost careless. “You know, like an artist who meant to sketch something silly and accidentally created a masterpiece. You can’t really replicate that. You don’t get to pretend it was all practice.”

I rolled my eyes, but I could feel the heat climb up my cheeks. “And then?” I pressed.

“And then,” you shrugged, the sunset catching in your lashes, “he would have to live with it. Because once you paint a Mona Lisa, everything else you create is going to feel like an apology.”

I laughed it off. Of course I did. It was much easier to laugh at reverence than to carry it—to carry the warmth pooling low in my stomach and the heat spreading from my face to every inch it could claim as its own territory. “You’re so dramatic,” I muttered, nudging your shoulder as if that would steady me. My hands felt clammy and sweaty, an unshakable sign of mortality and unremarkability.

You walked a little ahead after that, hands still buried in your pockets, shoes scraping against gravel in that lazy rhythm I had memorized without meaning to. I remember watching your back and thinking, absurdly, that maybe some truth did hide in your hyperbole. You must have cared about me at least a little—enough to orchestrate that entire speech. It couldn’t possibly have all been a façade.

The sky was bruising darker by then. The pinks surrendered first, then the oranges, leaving behind a purple that felt almost deliberate. Leaves whispered against one another in the wind. The air carried petrichor—damp, earthy, almost sweet—as if the ground itself had exhaled. Yellow streetlamps flickered awake along the pavement, their light stretching thin across the asphalt as motorbikes sliced past us in the opposite direction. For a second at a time, that faint gold caught on your hunched silhouette, sketching you in fragments before letting you disappear again.

“You don’t actually believe that,” I called out, half-teasing, half-hoping you would insist.

You turned around, walking backward now, grinning. “Believe what?”

“That I’m some . . . cosmic miracle that he can’t undo—or something.”

You shrugged again, softer this time. “Does that change anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just think,” you said, and your voice lost its edge of play, “that you don’t realize that sometimes that one person can truly change your life. If there’s a God, maybe even he doesn’t expect that.”

The wind picked up. My throat ran dry as I struggled to untangle the knots in my head. “Wow,” I laughed, words escaping my mouth before I could make sense of them, “you really are catastrophically dramatic.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “You’re the one who asked.”

“And you delivered a whole sermon!”

“I aim to please.”

A motorbike sped past us, its headlights briefly cutting across your face before disappearing down the road. You squinted into the wind, brushing your hair out of your forehead. The air felt sharper now, almost like shards grazing against skin. Goosebumps erupted all over my skin as I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I kept talking, not about anything in particular, while you laughed at all of it.

Our steps fell into rhythm without discussion. Your shoulder brushed mine once, then again. I kept walking. You adjusted your pace. The leaves overhead rustled like they were in on a joke that the universe was yet to bestow upon us.

“You always do this,” I added, nudging you lightly. “You turn the simplest of questions into a philosophical dilemma.”

“You love it.”

i lie on my bed, fingers tracing absent little circles against the blank white wall, as if i’m sketching the outline of someone who hasn’t stepped into existence. a name hovers at the edge of my mind—unwritten, unfinished. you are still a blur, a possibility suspended somewhere between a bollywood crescendo and the echo of an electric guitar riff that feels like it understands me better than most people do.

i imagine your hand close to mine—close enough to feel the warmth, too cautious to touch, yet too undone by the quiet pull between us to pull away. the space between our fingers will ache before our hearts ever confess it. you’ll find me when i least expect it—maybe beneath a wide open sky i’ve stopped to photograph, maybe during a walk where the trees lean in like they’re in on some secret. you’ll approach without agenda, without theatrics, simply because my company will feel like something you didn’t know you were missing.

and let’s be honest—you’ll find me enchanting in a slow, disarming way, as though comfort decided to grow a spine and a laugh and shoulder-length hair and stand before you as a person. i’ll be your december warmth, the kind that seeps into cold fingers and refuses to leave.

you’ll be fascinated by the machinery of my mind—the way it races, the way it spirals, the way it builds entire universes out of a single sentence. you’ll sit there listening, amused and a little in awe, as i jump from philosophy to fiction to something ridiculously random. you’ll say you’re trying to figure out what makes my gears turn, but you’ll already know what makes my heart stutter—how my brows knit when i’m thinking too hard, how my palms betray me when i’m nervous, how my laughter bursts out in crescents that refuse to be contained.

you’ll learn the map of me without ever asking for directions. you’ll know which silences mean peace and which mean i’m drowning. you’ll understand that sometimes i need reassurance, and sometimes i need space to sit with my sea of emotions. and you’ll love it there—the chaos, the tenderness, the depth. you won’t flinch at it.

you’ll take me to places i’ve only read about in novels. you’ll hand me new music like it’s sacred, watch my eyes light up when a melody wraps around my ribs. you’ll listen when i talk about stories i’m writing, about characters who feel too real, about how i want to build something meaningful in this world. you’ll watch me hunched over the desk with furrowed brows and call me cute before instantly solving my problem. you’ll bring me coffee on days i’ve barely slept and tease me about how i claim to love it even though it makes me jittery.

we’ll talk for hours under starlight—about galaxies and fate and whether love is written in algorithms or carved into destiny. and somewhere in those conversations you’ll realise i have become your axis, the quiet gravity your planets orbit without complaint. and for once, you won’t run from it. you won’t fear the intensity. you’ll accept it like the turning of seasons—like something inevitable and gentle and right.

because fate, after all, has a way of tugging at the red string until you stop pretending it isn’t there.

you’ll kneel in reverence for the kind of love that feels sacred. because what could be better than falling for the girl who feels everything too much, who loves too deeply, who laughs too loudly at stupid jokes and still believes in magic even when the world insists she shouldn’t?

and in my own soft, stubborn way, i’ll bloom, slowly, quietly, with every road you help me cross, with every chord you strum, with every time you look at me like i’m something worth protecting. you’ll show me the moon and i’ll pretend to be fascinated by it, unaware that the real constellation is reflected in your eyes. i’ll keep pointing out sunsets, insisting they’re the prettiest part of the day, never realising that to you, it’s the way the fading light catches on my face.

you’ll love me in a way that doesn’t feel like fire threatening to burn out, but like a steady flame that refuses to dim. you, who do not exist yet, will hand me a mirror and reveal a version of myself that glows brighter than i ever dared to imagine—softer, stronger, more certain.

and maybe one day, when the air conditioner hums and the walls bear witness again, i won’t be tracing empty circles anymore.

you were, perhaps, a bit of an everything.

when your glasses were abandoned somewhere they don't belong, not perched on the bridge of your nose like they usually are but forgotten entirely, my heart betrayed me in a way it could never apologise for. your hair fell onto your forehead in that careless way that looks accidental and divine all at once, as if even the heavens themselves had descended to caress your face. and how could they not? there's warmth written in the tip of your ears and serenity painted in the mole beneath your jaw. god must've taken his time with you. i can't imagine otherwise.

you lay there defenseless, unaware of the quiet wreckage you were causing, your arm lazily draped over your forehead, the soft smile i'd grown to find comfort in—already etched somewhere i couldn't undo. your eyes folded into quiet crescents, crinkling like they were made only for moments when you didn't know you were being remembered. sunlight found you then, tracing your face tenderly, reverently, as if it knew better than to rush. as if it understood that this was something rare.

and i forgot who i was talking to.

you?

god?

i am a sea of emotions,

vast enough to swallow myself whole—

depths no one ever truly maps,

not even me.

most days, i drown quietly in it,

gasping for air inside a body i call home.

is any of this truly mine?

were you ever mine?

i ask myself that question more often

than i’m willing to confess.

because what even is me?

am i the soul drifting through a cosmic river,

watching seasons dissolve on my tongue—

summer melting sweet and meaningless,

tasting nothing like you,

not the way winter did.

winter knew you.

it wrapped me in the warmth of knowing you,

even as uncertainty brushed my cheeks,

sharp and tender all at once.

it settled into my eyes,

took the shape of a look

i’d learned to associate only with you.

were you ever mine,

or was i just borrowing the feeling

of being held—

by possibility,

by timing,

by a love that never asked for permission?

i don’t know where you end

and i begin anymore.

i only know this:

somewhere between the cold and the thaw,

i learned how to miss something

that was never promised,

and still feels like the one