IN RETROSPECT

The streets I explored when I first reached were preparing for death.
Feet crushed leaves, slipped and slid over the ice and snow,
traipsed through pools of sunlight, over the dawns and twilights
I learnt that I have a lot to learn about this impassive city.

I learnt that the puffs and teardrops of momentum and magic hide.
Dissolving in the air around you, raining down on you
tiny spiders of rememory unobtrusively weaving iridescent webs
around the hurricanes in your mind, letting the storms rage
and shake, making you think your mind is going to break.

Till the small spiders finish their work and take a step back to survey
hurricanes so tightly bound they have shrunk to a fly’s size.
Flashbacks which have lost their brutal thunder, utterly powerless
Ghosts which have lost the iron grip on your shoulder, no longer
wretchedly pulling you down, instead are gagged and bound.

You are astonished, sprinklings of glittering webs still hanging off you
You are unaware, not yet unafraid – storms don’t just abate
You are wary, so you take a step back – a step turns into a jog – a run
and you glance back, Lot’s wife in mind but desperate to find
some sort of clarity as to why you suddenly have back your sanity
some sort of clarity as to why there is no more mental disparity

And the distance affords the perspective and you return, deliberately,
slowly – step by step towards a city which doesn’t glitter
but glows and which stretches out it’s spider webs, its magic and its might
to show you that though you may not fully belong, it’s not like
you are completely without some sort of a home.