Letters

(Part 1)

This will reach before you, I write.

I miss you already-but this I will not write.

Instead, I say-

Today a butterfly sat on my shoulder

When I was out buying groceries,

Isn’t that strange? 

And then I say

I’d forgotten what afternoons are like

But this Saturday, the city reminds me

of a village afternoon.

This keyboard is awful, I say, and the place stinks.

I hope there will be bhindi for dinner.

I write like this because I cannot believe that you are gone.  

I cannot comprehend distance.

Now I write- because I’m incurably honest, after all –

I write- I miss you already,

Isn’t that strange?

I like dragonflies, you replied.

They are magnificent lords of the sky.

I travelled in a crowded chariot of dirty silver

With a girl who had beautiful eyes

And let me look into her soul for a minute.

I am writing this from an old city

Where the people are stern, and unaccepting of Fate.

You are a child of destiny-

But I, I’m just broke.

Where were you, you said,

Why couldn’t you have come by earlier?

(Part 2)

I’ll confess: a decade later,

I googled your name.

Oh Google, God of Possibility.

At thy altar, I whisper

A name.

And get about 238,000 possibilities.

Your fault:

You have a common name.

I made it special,

To me.

I hit delete

on a folder

the absence

of your presence

a permanent mark.

Sometimes I dream

We’ll meet:

In an airport

Or a train station

Or a bus station.

We are always in transit.

That cannot change. 

I read a poem

It said:

The one who loved your pilgrim soul.

You have a common name.

God of Possibility:

Pray me home.