for four years, I have called you home.
my roots might lie elsewhere,
but here i learnt to fly.
here i learnt to never compromise on the things which matter,
or the people who do.
here i fell in love, again and again,
and patched up heartbreak with lyric and rain.
i’ve navigated your shadows,
sung your songs,
written poems for your seas and for your twilight.
i’ve seen night turn to day
through spirit stained glasses.
walked lanes and bylanes
through wafting smells of food
and the chorus of hundreds of voices
singing the same song
in different languages
using different words.
i’ve died and lived here so many times
i have lost count.
you have been my co-conspirator,
my muse, my riotous palette;
my symphony and my cacophony.
you’ve accepted my darkness and my light
my kinks and foibles
my love and my other demons.
friends and lovers,
sea-spray and laughter.
rains and dusks,
trains and shadows.
dregs of dreams
distilled in alcohol
as poems, songs we forget.
you shall be missed.
see you around. 🙂
—
Photo by the superb Aneel Neupane. Check out more of his work here
