Winner | RTF Poem Writing Competition May 2021
Category: Poem: Complex Pasts – Diverse Futures
Participant: Sunena V Maju
Profession: Student
City: ernakulam
———————————
A letter from Sabarmati to Ahmedabad
As time flows, I may become a memory!
A memory of what you walked in A memory of what you touched!
I’ll no longer be the one that fed you,
I’ll no longer be the one, who loved you blindly and stood by you,
I, who you warmed and seized and played upon, will no longer be tactile!
The day I would accept that ‘we’ are imaginary, I shall flow!
Flow like a one-sided lover who finally gives up!
And then, I’ll be gone…long gone!
For time you’ll come searching me, maybe you’ll find me.
You can ask me to stay and maybe I’ll cogently stay Maybe I’ll come back but not the same way I left.
I’ll come with you and stay,
I’ll stay like a corpse that doesn’t decay.
The corpse of the innocent love you killed.
I’ll stay as a contradiction to time
I’ll stay like an autumn leaf that doesn’t fall
I’ll stay like the preserved bones of an extinct dinosaur I’ll stay as that corpse that doesn’t decay.
I’ll stay as a memory to our Incomplete Love!
And you’ll remember then, Remember the times we were one
Remember the times when I completed you, Remember the times when I let myself drain but sustain you,
And I’ll regret the times when I was loved by people I never valued, Regret the time when I thought they were a curse and you were my freedom,
Regret the time when they celebrated me and I wished to run away, Regret the time when I thought you were what completed me!
Regret loving you so selflessly!
I know you now realize I was worth your time.
But your realization came after my time.
I know, you love me now, I know you miss me, I know I mean a world to you now.
But my love, you were late, I waited but you were late.
So now take me,
Take my lifeless soul back to our story.
Feed me through our memories and let my corpse not decay in time.
Tell our tale to the worlds, Tell them where you went wrong.
Tell them the story for some other stories of our sort shall not go incomplete.
With Love, the river you couldn’t protect.
