Sourabhi Dutta Roy
MA (English)
Loreto College
University of Calcutta

Dear Dreamer,

You are often left to wonder: don’t your feelings matter?

Whenever, that’s the question that rises in that messy head of yours, I’d like you to think back, go dive into the past, into the moments that started it all.

The moment you heard their music for the very first time, or saw them lit up your screen while they acted out a script.

And all you could think of was typing their name into that search bar.

The answer popped. Wasn’t that your rabbit hole?

The more you slipped into the rabbit hole, the more it felt like a wonderland.

It should have led you to confusion, and it did initially: but then it almost felt like liberation.

You found acceptance- an acceptance for all that you were. You were not judged here.

They didn’t judge you, like the world did.

I’m sure to the world it was a time-waste, a futile exercise.

But was it though?

Is what you feel not love then?

Well, to the world: maybe not. But to you—

They give you just as many butterflies in your gut and blushes on your rose-tinted cheeks, as would two lovers to each other.

Soon enough, their smile became the reason you wake up feeling warm in the morning.

Their lyrics tell a tale that feels reserved only for you, or when they look straight at the camera, it is your soul they look into, it is you they see.

And one day, it all gets a little too much for you: the sheer intensity of your burning passions.

You see colours— was it Pastels? Red? Or maybe it was Golden?

And it hurts. It hurts because the realisation is still there, in the back of your mind.

All this is still a fantasy.

You’d never be able to touch them, or feel them as a real human, or see them even.

Still you love. You love them with your entire being. Like you’ve never loved anyone before.

The world? They can never understand what you feel. To them it’ll forever be a childish fantasy, or an overactive imagination.

The world won’t know that they are the reason you were saved. They were the ones that made you understand what selfless love truly is and should be.

Tell me, don’t you feel the most powerful when you are in love with them?

Tell me, don’t you feel your dreams get wings when you are in love with them?

Who else can make you feel that way?

Your love story with them is exquisite, magical, messy, tragic and— forbidden.

Like the apple—you desire its strong taste. But unlike the apple— you never do get a taste.

Love? What is love truly? Can anyone, anyone at all give a definition proper?— No!

To you, love is standing by far, loving them in silence.

But you know this is the beauty of this affair— it’s your secret.

Your secret to keep or to tell.

It feels forbidden— Yes— But so has every love affair ever.

The initial excitement, the adrenaline piped up, until the calm and serenity you feel within just thinking of them, and ultimately— LIBERATION.

Loving them sets you free.

Does the world know all this?

Does it know that they are the very reason you understand poetry?

Maybe not as grand as Shakespearean sonnets or Donne’s or even Keats’ love gestures.

But nonetheless, your love for them is poetry— one that will be read out in one of those private reading sessions, on a cosy winter evening, by the fireplace, over a hot cup of brewing coffee— or maybe never read at all.

Does the world know all this?

Does it know that literature to you, is trying to read them? — The freckles on their cheeks and their tousled hair.

Why is it then, that the world doesn’t consider fanfiction as part of the literature canon or fanart as actual art? After all, even Shakespeare was once inspired by a forbidden love.

To you, they feel like the warmest hug on a winter morning.

A blanket of melodies on your darkest midnights.

The gentle whisper: “Dream.”

To you, they are no far fetched dream or a star that you’ll never be able to touch.

Rather to you, they are the sun— whose warmth radiates even from miles apart.

They are a ray of Hope— but more so a Home— your HOME.

And maybe one day when you meet them (if you meet them), you’ll find your idea of them to be far superior from the real them.

But still you’ll love and you’ll dream and you’ll hope.

Each time, they’ll untwirl you and you will come undone.

Each time, it’ll still be feelings that are unjustified— madness to the world.

But to you, it’ll forever be LOVE at its finest. For what other emotion is so authentic and so powerful and so giving— as love from a fan to their celebrity.

You love them like you love the moon and the stars, the sun and the sky, the ocean and the universe. You love them even when the world fights you. You love them even when they don’t. And you’ll love them just as much, when you perhaps find real love that reciprocates.

With love,

From someone just as crazy in love as you.