Beneath hovering dust and unfinished structures,
stood a three-legged stool,
the refuge of an 8-year-old,
who holds a worn pencil,
and a torn notebook,
like sacred books of yore.

His hands move, but mind faster,
and with his wandering heart, wanders mine too,
to a decade back,
when I stood outside the same room,
the wall of which I'd been leaning against.

My study, which holds worlds,
camouflaged as books,
finished, unfinished,
and the ones that left me broken,
pulls me in, despite,
but at its doorstep, I must keep caution,
I must not enter again,
for in times of calling,
a promise had been made.

So as it goes,
I have kept my word,
but seems they have failed,
tip-toeing in my dreams,
queried and complained,
why did I leave, just like that?
one fine morning, and an abandoned hat?

And I wonder, do they not know?
That lay beside them,
a tiny little shelf too?
Next to myriad universes, waiting for my universe too?

The shelf stays still, like an empty lifeless canvas,
just as it was in the rains of '04,
just as it was in the winters of '05.

And yet all this while,
the one promise I have kept,
the promise is of betrayal,
that I will delude,
and be disloyal.

I shift with discomfort,
and so does my sight,
the storyteller's out there,
his world alike.