parting

ever since i was born, i have borne partings.
every few months, everytime i got used to one setup, one house,
one set of people, one set of gaurdians, i had to move to another.
one would think, by now, i'd get used to it. yet, somehow, i never do.

life has taught me to put down roots easily.
i get attached to new people before i know whats happening
strange places become home. i used to say, home is anywhere
i spend the night. i carry my home inside me.

life has taught to make friends quickly and fast.
and then labelled me unfaithful for being a good student.
but what i havent learnt is how to dull the agony of parting.
it still shatters me, everytime, to say goodbye.


and the last years new lessons taught me that partings
are not always followed by reunions.
everytime you leave your family,
you will not see them again, next year, next summer.

i have grown up seeing my father once a year.
somewhere, there was a hope that if i wait long enough
time will come, when we will be together forever
one day, we will all live together. so i waited.

but time changes everything. time erodes the goalposts
even while you are running towards them
so that panting, coughing blood, when you somehow
arrive, somehow survive, there's nothing but ghosts to greet you.

time takes everything away. you try to pluck a moment and
freeze it in your heart, but when you take it out again'
in some quiet corner of a faraway tommorow,
you find nothing but ghosts of memories. fast fading.

so the wise let go of each moment as it passes
they live only in the one they find themselves in
i have learned that trick with places and people
teach me how to do it with time. teach me to be a master of time.