I don't live there anymore

I dreamed about you again...

Years pass, people change,
I have changed,
And yet, a little of the pain stays.

During rains, when the windows were
Left slightly open,
The wind used to whistle,
Like a magical flute being played.

Summer days were breezy
Never a moment of muggy afternoons.

It was routine to watch
The sun setting into salt pans,
Beautiful hues of red and pink and purple and orange.
The sky reflected in the salt pans filled with water.
Water from the creek.

I dreamed again of those sleepless nights,
Awake on my bed, watching the rotating beam,
Coming from the lighthouse,
Somewhere across the mountains.

The horizon was the mountains,
Mountains on the horizon.
The creek lay beyond,
Unseen.

You were home. My home.
I don't think of you much now.

Out of the blue,
Some reference, some comment,
Reminds me again.

That dream home of ours.
You have been so real and yet so symbolic.

We broke when we left you.
Broke into pieces,
Never to be whole again.

I pass by there sometimes,
They have widened the windows,
The new people.
Hope they found the happiness,
Which we lost.

It doesn't pain as much,
As it used to.
Yet, it does pinch.

I walked through the rooms,
The passage,
Everything was just as I remember.

I felt the wind rustling through my hair
Felt the cold, comfortable tiles underfoot
Sat in my old room, staring out the window.
At the view of old, which used to exist back then.

Walked through every room,
And realised...
It's empty. It's a shell. A mere memory.
From which we run away.

The kitchen is cold, nobody cooks a family meal there.
The Mandir has no Idols.

The desk in the living room,
Will not be used by Dad.
The doorbell isn't gonna ring,
Nobody is visiting anymore.

No neighbours, coming for a quick chat
No Diwali sweets to be shared,
No rangoli made outside the door
I can't even hear the kids playing outside.

I sometimes dream of you,
Like you were in the days bygone.
But you are just a ghost now,
Because I don't live there anymore.

Yes, we moved on.
Both pieces of that once whole family.

I am still searching for my roots,
Roaming like a nomad,
Not just physically,
Even through personal relationships.

I still don't belong anywhere,
You were so symbolic.
I am yet to find a true Home,
We left you, and we broke.

The memories flood the mind,
Sweeping me through those indolent days,
Those memories which I had hidden away,
Gushing forth in a stream, through wounds which opened again.

Lost hope, heartbreaks, betrayals,
Loss. Loss everywhere.

I stitch the wounds when I wake up.
Keep up the smiles,
Square my shoulders and hold my head high.

I keep telling myself.

I don't live there anymore.