Caught

Why can I still feel the cold
Of the monsoon breeze

Rush through the tussles of my hair

Even as I smell the fresh parchment

Of earth presumptuously waiting

Beneath the ominous sky?

Why do I remember
That culprit of a raindrop
That left that tiny tea stain
On the corner of your t-shirt
On that forgotten rainy day that
Bid us to halt there
For shelter and warmth?

Why did the sub-conscious
Willfully leave an audible spot
To store your scent
That it so craftily learned
To tag along with
A whiff of cigarette smoke?

Why does the stray finger
Always voluntarily trace its path
Down the spine
Of you in my eye, in the air,
Pausing, savouring,
Engulfed, enthralled?

Why does the anger refuse point-blank
To simmer down
Even as I piece and string painfully
One careless word against another,
One puckering punctuation away from another,
Cautiously spacing them away,
Lest they suffocate each other
With their brimming intensity?

Why, despite all these battles within
To arrive at a final say,
To write that final word
And be done,
And no more,
And redeem,
And stabilize,
My blunt pencil drags me,
Grudgingly, one inch at a time, closer,
To your smell, your touch,
Your taste, your breathlessness – caught in mine,
Swirling, tossing, looping, engulfing,
Satiating, throbbing, wanting
And pleading,
For more,
So much more?

Just please tell me this,
If this is not love, then, 

- Why?