I was looking for a friend—
who would erase every false date from my memories
and write me a new birthday,
who would look at the world through the cracks of my broken glasses
and say, "Why is it so beautiful?"
They would come at night, silent as a cat's paws,
take out all the old grief stored inside my cupboard,
fold it carelessly,
and in its place leave a packet of biscuits
and a half-finished cup of tea.
When the window glass shatters from my cough,
they would take a piece of that glass and cut their own palm,
then draw blue alpana on my forehead—
"Don't be afraid, blood is just the name of a color."
They would take me into the crowd of a protest march,
where police tears and tear gas dance together,
and standing there, they would teach me—
how to soak a handkerchief in my own tears,
how to fly that handkerchief like a bird that never learned to fly.
One day, the two of us would build a nest at the wrong address,
and inside we'd place a long-back terrorist, a kilo of false dreams,
and half a liter of a song about getting a lover back.
When they would say, "Now let's run,"
I would understand— running away doesn't mean letting go,
running away means making a road to go somewhere else.
They would write on the last page of my diary—
"I have stolen all the sins of this person,
now they are just a child,
with only a handful of sunlight and two bird wings."
And then I, standing not in a church but in a tea stall,
would shout—
this is my friend,
who broke me again and again yet built me so well
that no difference between broken and built
remains anymore.
Apr 17
Apr 17, 2026 at 2:03 PM UTC
I was looking for a friend—
who would erase every false date from my memories
and write me a new birthday,
who would look at the world through the cracks of my broken glasses
and say, "Why is it so beautiful?"
They would come at night, silent as a cat's paws,
take out all the old grief stored inside my cupboard,
fold it carelessly,
and in its place leave a packet of biscuits
and a half-finished cup of tea.
When the window glass shatters from my cough,
they would take a piece of that glass and cut their own palm,
then draw blue alpana on my forehead—
"Don't be afraid, blood is just the name of a color."
They would take me into the crowd of a protest march,
where police tears and tear gas dance together,
and standing there, they would teach me—
how to soak a handkerchief in my own tears,
how to fly that handkerchief like a bird that never learned to fly.
One day, the two of us would build a nest at the wrong address,
and inside we'd place a long-back terrorist, a kilo of false dreams,
and half a liter of a song about getting a lover back.
When they would say, "Now let's run,"
I would understand— running away doesn't mean letting go,
running away means making a road to go somewhere else.
They would write on the last page of my diary—
"I have stolen all the sins of this person,
now they are just a child,
with only a handful of sunlight and two bird wings."
And then I, standing not in a church but in a tea stall,
would shout—
this is my friend,
who broke me again and again yet built me so well
that no difference between broken and built
remains anymore.
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