72 HOURS TO MONDAY

Picture Courtesy: www.usc.edu


Leafing through,
My past pieces she did,
Reading,
What she had already read before,
Commenting on them
As though they were still new.


There I sat alive,
Watching my funeral unfold,
What she did made me feel old,
As though I had lost motion in my limbs,
Lost my sense of imagination,
I felt no more alive,
Than a piece of wood,
From which a coffin was being fashioned out.


I was moved to tears,
I wrestled with fear,
For I could see the new me,
Surrounded by,
Bottles of ink that had been overturned,
But not a drop of ink soiled the carpet,
The ink inside had turned to stone.
Paper lay strewn all around
But none had writings on them,
They were as blank as blank could be,
None were new,
They were all brown and old.


So hurriedly,
I looked around,
In search of me,
For that could not be me,
The more I searched,
The faster my heart did beat,
My legs grew weak
And everything else began to spin,
Feeling faint,
I sat on the nearest seat,
Lay my head on the table,
For I felt much worse than tortured meat.


As the minutes went by,
I became calm,
I lifted my head,
And realized everything else was still.
Hearing a rustling sound,
I turned to the window
And saw the wind rustling,
Saying,
Finally,
I got your attention,
I smiled back at him,
Not knowing what else to say in conversation,
I rubbed my eyes,
Just to make sure that was not my imagination,
When I opened them again,
I could see nothing more than idle plantain leaves.


Instinctively,
I reached for a pen,
Began writing on the table,
As though possessed,
When I came to,
I realised I had defaced the table,
I reached for my shirt,
In a bit to erase what I had done,
It was then that it dawned on me,
This is me,
Writing is me,
In the midst of messy and untidy
Mass of words struggling to stand straight in line,
I found me,
And in finding me,
I found those words a part of me.


In seeking challenge,
We add to what initially left us challenged,
We do not scale back on that which
No longer leaves us challenged,
We add more to it,
In doing so,
We remain challenged.
There’s no new me,
Neither is there an old me,
There’s only me,
I learnt all these and more 72 hours to this Monday,
Did you really think I’d be gone for long?