I don’t listen to music
But my playlist is filled with songs you suggested
They were supposed to change my life
They didn’t, you did,
you don’t always know better.
I listen to them and hear you,
Without hurt or guilt, I see them as them
Because they’re my songs hidden in files
On the hard disk of my computer, they
want nothing of yours anymore.
I talk in fragments,
Hindi, English and a variety of confused silences
Pausing, struggling to find words,
It was never easy communicating,
You just made me struggle and
left me to grasp for oxygen
In an aircraft designed to tumble mid-air,
-130 degree Celsius of pure tyranny.
My favourite game was always hide and seek,
I was so good no one ever found me,
But I never had the confidence to go out and win it,
I was always happy in my safe zone,
Never understanding the fun of having a den
A part of life I never learnt.
I always liked colouring, filling the blanks,
But never sketching because I was too scared
To draw a single out of place,
Considered as wrong line and spoil the beauty,
I forgot it was my creation, I could throw black ink
And it wouldn’t matter,
It is because I am.
You liked that, didn’t you?
Me being a shadow?
I wanted so much,
For you to collect the puzzle pieces of the muddle of my brain
And organize them into logical order, preferably alphabetical?
I wanted you to find me and hand me over the den, only if I had ever lost,
could I really win,
Sometimes being alone pushes you to find things you never knew existed,
I wish you had let me draw the contours of your face
And not said, “Maybe another day, you don’t draw anyway, or do you?”