Knots. Everywhere I go I see them, I feel them. I fumble with them; my fingers an angry jumble of thumbs. My love is a knot that cannot be undone.

Like my intestines which churn each time I wait for the phone to ring. My veins are a labyrinth. Who knows where they begin and end. The only time it ever mattered was when I needed them severed and stared undecidedly over my wrist with no understanding of physiology.

I have fingers that do not stay still. They tremble when I watch them and spasm when I pretend to fall asleep. I have lost count of how many tombs, and shrines I have left red threads heavy with prayers for you. From Kathmandu to the Gulf of Cambay, from St. Mary’s Basilica in Bombay to the dargah of Pir Inayat Khan. “Come back. I’m here. I haven’t moved an inch away. Come back to me.” The threads remain tied.

Knots in my stomach, knots in my chest. I have turned every living memory of you into a fibrous fist that pulses with life that begs to be kept. When I can’t sleep I am looking at ceilings, willing you to appear. Untying knots are tedious and painful. Imagine combing out dreadlocked hair after 14 years of Rastafarianism.

Patiently. Penitently. Pick, pull, and loosen. Untie. Undo. Unmake. Unwill. Unwant. I’m thinking of all these little words and the impossible things they mean. I am thinking of how your name, small enough to fit into my coin pocket, spans the skyline and the depth of all oceans. I am thinking of how the word, “untie”, once spelled the word, “unite”. And because there is nothing left to do with our realisations and personal dawnings, I cut another line of string and take my shoes off before making one more knot in your name that I will never be able to undo.