Nineteen years of weather | Sreedhari Desai

nineteen years of weather

they said nineteen years like it was a court sentence,
like i’d signed papers to be misunderstood forever.
but i married you the way you take a holy dip
in the river ganges…
not because it’s smart,
because you have to test your beliefs.

you called me crunchie,
like i was something sweet
with a little bite to it,
like i’d survive teeth.

i called you muncharon,
half joke, half prayer…
the man who kept chewing through life
even when life got tough and stale
and tried to chew you back.

you’d sit with that beat-up guitar
like it was a confession booth,
fingers stained with time,
and you’d play songs that smelled like weed
and basement carpet
and red wine
and a summer that never learned to behave.

you didn’t teach me music, really…
you handed me the raw magic of the 70s
like a stolen wallet:
here, kid,
this is what it feels like
when people mean it.

i learned heartbreak comes with a backbeat.
that desire can be a chorus.
that some men can’t say “i love you”
without six strings and a minor chord.

then you took me places…
europe like a long, elegant inhale:
cities with stone bones,
cathedrals towering like guilt,
cafés where the cups are small
but the days are huge.
you showed me splendor
the way a man shows a woman a secret…
quietly,
like if you spoke too loud
it would turn into a postcard.

and mexico…
the pueblas with their paint-bright walls,
laundry like flags of ordinary victory,
humility so honest it makes you ashamed
of your shiny needs.

there, i watched you soften.
not old…
just human.
as if the colors were forgiving you
for every gray thought you’d ever had.

i loved you.

that’s the whole scandal.
no tragedy i could frame in a neat headline…
just two people
holding on
like the world didn’t get a vote.

but the age gap…
it’s not a number, it’s a weather system.
it moves in slowly
and then one day i realize
i’ve been living in it.

you started saying retirement
like it was a warm coat.
like it was finally time
to stop wrestling the river.

and me…
i started hearing ambition
clink around inside my chest,
new and sharp,
like someone dropped coins into an empty jar.
because loving you
didn’t shrink me.
it lit me.

and that’s the cruel part nobody warns you about:
sometimes a man loves you so well
you become a bigger version of yourself
right when he’s trying to become smaller.

you wanted a porch,
quiet mornings,
potted plants that know the routine,
the kind of life that doesn’t ask questions.

i wanted a runway.
i wanted the door unlatched.
i wanted to see how far my legs could take me
before my heart dragged me home.

so you did the bravest thing
a tired man can do:
you didn’t chain me to your comfort.
you sent me off
like a song you couldn’t stop singing.

not because you stopped loving me,
but because love…real love…
sometimes looks like letting your hands go empty
so the other person’s can fill.

still, it did a number on us both.
it made you feel older than you were.
it made me feel guilty for being young.
it made time sit between us at dinner
like an uninvited friend
who won’t shut up.

some nights
i’d be lying there…
crunchie and muncharon…
and i could feel it:
the future pulling me forward
while the past pulled you back,
like we were holding the same rope
from different ends of the same burning building.

and yet.

there’s this:

when i close my eyes,
i still hear that guitar…
a little off, a little perfect…
and i still taste the 70s
like a mouthful of wild air.
i still see europe
as you showed it to me…
not as luxury
but as proof
the world can be beautiful
and still survive.

i still see the mexican streets,
the bright walls,
the humility that doesn’t beg,
and i remember how you looked at me there,
like i was the one thing
you couldn’t out-age.

and maybe that’s what i got
from loving a man nineteen years ahead of me:

a crash course in wonder,
a bruised, holy kind of gratitude,
and the hard truth
that love doesn’t always grow old together…
sometimes it grows two different directions
and still stays love.

some people call that failure.
but they’ve never been called crunchie
by a man with tired hands
playing a song
that makes your whole life
sit up and listen.

they’ve never loved someone
enough to set them free
and keep loving them anyway.