I AM SMRITI RAI

Your favourite thing to do is read books on Sunday,  lying on your low bed, your skin glimmers with a gorgeous morning it must feel lonely when you cannot relate to any of the characters in your book On Sundays, it just feels whole. You see a brief blue sky when you rest your book on your paperwhite pillow! Just a week before, you stood 1085m high underneath the same sky for the second time  This time, you got to see the view from the inside of the glass as a shy train passed by the glorious glass view This was new - summit  without your cousins,  stepping new terrain,  although it was not your steps you were very careful You left your friends to swim in this new terrain and even though you were careful, your feet hurt! That night when you lay on your bunkbed  it reminded you of your childhood You were 8 years old when you learned how to swim, you learned how to ride a bike and how to leave your friends... she was there when you were here for the first time with your cousins and nephew

You said you have no sympathy for the ones who danced with death and lost! Usually, there is no mourning for their loss, so tonight I want to hear about their deeds. I want to hear all about their hidden battle that they thought none of us could comprehend! Tonight, I am ready to stand in their shoes and practise this dance because a few years ago when your favourite rapper was on the stage where he performed for the last time, I could not dare enter this studio on my own! This studio is the only place where I always run to and none of my demons can enter when I lock its door but that night my hands were shaking and I left the door open letting the invisible in. I could picture his last dance and none of it made sense to the world... At the time, it didn't make sense to me either! No matter how painful the practise, no matter how regretful the dance, we always had to put our best foot forward...That's what I always thought because that's what my father taught me. My father,

The love I know is drunk and it's September. The love I know is seasonal and summer is ending soon but I want it   to stay even if it's not sober. Winter will soon be on display beating me black with its Winter blues whilst I sink into Session 12, the helpless town blacks out and there is not a single sound not even a borrowed voice. I run to Autumn and its copper leaves, don't let the sober mornings  in. Several times, Winter tried to wrap me with its drunk ways and its blues but it never won, Autumn feels safe, it paints its own safe hues.   I cry, hoping the town will paint something warm But there is a mayor who is sober and so is the winter! I remember I have always been alone I hear someone else crying too Together but alone - this town made me who I am. This is where I ran my first race, All along the mayor was too busy to attend. Town and I, we made amends on our own. We wiped our tears - on our own I didn't have a voice and the town borrowed rhymes from me