When the memories hit you….

It’s the dark which seems to go on forever,

Spreading its mighty, mythical wings through the sky,

Claiming its possession; marking its territory,

Swooping through the low, soaring towards the high.

The ghost of your hand still remains on the small of my back,

The fountain of your laugh still lingers as my resolution’s crumbling, its treachery,

The barest of efforts; and I can picture your smile; the haunting allure of it,

Oh, my love, in my dreams, you always smell like a memory.

The calm of your eyes one moment; the storm in them the next,

They were the warmest blue covering the coldest ice in the façade of love, of care,

They did that, crashing into my pinnacles and taking a pedestal,

Beneath the beauty of those eyes of yours, how selfish you really were.

It’s the strike of a lightening as the anger of abandonment floods me,

It’s the same red of humiliation, the black of shame that covers me,

How pathetic you have made me to be, I scream without uttering a syllable,

How, after all these years between us, I am still bound by the shackles you put me in, never completely free.

The darkness spreads, taking all and all into its captivity,

Its merciless in its need to control, to tower,

To spread the cape, it wears as a crown, to yield the spectrum it clasps,

To make a display out of its conquering; a show of undefeatable power.

I sit here in the ridge of my balcony, waiting for the sun to rise,

Waiting for the rays of golden to eclipse the shadows of grey,

For the call of the birds, for the awakening of the world,

For the oncoming of a new day, a new battle in the fray.

I sit here in the midst of my memories, and my misgivings,

Waiting for the moment when the pain of words spoken and unspoken finally ebbs away,

My eyes trailing the skyline, seeking the solace I had begun to crave,

Basking in the glory of the sun, regaining my strength and my stay.

You are the sun, you are the darkness,

You are calm, you are the storm, it says,

Free to reign yourself in the pits of deep desolation,

Yet also, free to break the chains, free to break away.

                                                                                         ~ Anantinee Mishra

                                                                                           New Delhi, India