Hiraeth
written by: Mahua Sen
@Mahua2023
There’s a river that flows through my mind.
I’ve named her Hiraeth, a term of endearment.
My tiny town was once located
by the banks of this river,
where spring flew in laughing rills through
the solemn shadows of vintage trees.
I dawdled around the golden
prairies,
looking for you.
I searched for you everywhere
In the noisy rabble and in places desolate.
Around the babbling of the streams and the
rustling of Deodar trees at night.
Finally, I found you
and we walked for a mile, by the river
fingers entwined, soaked in an unspoken vow
anointing each other’s rough edges.
I nestled my existence in the beauty
of the words you uttered.
You would tell me
how the sky should have been a shade of amethyst,
your favourite colour.
I would laugh at the oddity of your thoughts.
Time fleeted like a handful of sand.
One day, you disappeared somewhere.
You took my town with you.
Waves of despair wash up on the shores of my censored conscious,
I have died a thousand deaths ever since
drowning into the splanchnic smog
of a moist gloom.
I see the climbing chaos on the torn lining
of the broken moments.
That day has left me a lifetime ago.
When the fatigued sun leans its shoulders
on the bosom of the horizon
memories run through my veins
swimming through the ocean in my heart,
making sediments in the chamber of my mind,
Oft they melt,
and drip through the lacrimal duct of my eyes
I’ve carved my life in the solitude you’ve settled
in the wrinkles of my laugh line.
My ashen shadow’s crimson tears
absorb the epigrammatic fragility of the
wailing night.
The pause between my heartbeats echo
the silent presence of your absence.
Now, I and Hiraeth sit and talk
about the trail of memories
left by You.
For the unsaid words,
meander between the lines of our
turbulent goodbyes.
And a handful of air, to breathe,
slips through my clenched fist.
- Hiraeth - June 30, 2023
- Breathless - April 18, 2022
- She - September 18, 2021
