On Monday, I found my neighbor's
shawl lying over my terrace floor,
dusted and torn on the edges,
I assume yesterday's storm as
the reason for this tragedy.
I wanted to return the shawl back
but I brought it with myself in my room,
maybe because I needed to feel
the warmth of someone's presence
or maybe smell a new scent.
I hid the shawl in my cupboard
with some other stolen things, one of
them is a dried leaf which I picked
up while walking by the streets of
Rohini on a gloomy Tuesday morning,
this leaf is as delicate as a lover's
throbbing heart and as dead as an
atheist's deceased faith in god.
On Wednesday, a stranger
sent me their Spotify playlist on
Instagram, it was titled as "Hope"
and now all of its songs are in my
playlist too. I stole hope from a stranger that day.
On Thursday, I completed reading
a book which was lying abandoned
on the dusty wooden table in my room, I stole some words from that book and wrote them in my last year's journal. The words are still stuck inside my head.
On Friday, I met a child beggar on my
way back to home, he was crying
rivers and so I stole his tears and
gave him my slippers to wear.
On reaching home I used the child's
tears to visit the deserted land of my memories and dug the soil deeper
and deeper but only to bury the
moisture in my eyes.
On Saturday evening, I found a
lost piece of my spirit in a cloud above
and stole all the grey shades from it
and hid them between the lines of
another piece of my half-written poetry.
Today is Sunday, and I completed
a year old draft because yesterday my
neighbor called me a "thief" and
snatched away her pashmina shawl
from my shoulders. Today, I stole the threads of my own misery and weaved them
together into a poetry so that others can steal something from me too.
About the poet:
I am a 19 year old female from Delhi, trying to make ends while holding on to the thread of hope, which is for me, the words. Currently, I am pursuing Political Science Honours from Delhi University. You can find her on Instagram @p.prachi__