A childhood lit by faces —
father and mother, soaked in spotless love,
a rod in father's hand, woven
from all the goodness he had learned and known.
When he raised it to strike, they looked at each other —
he swung it gently, she caught it midway,
"He won't do it again," she said,
and that was enough.
Grandfather's stories with the taste of wisdom,
my sister, always hungry for more of their love,
and me — wearing my affection for my brother
like a duty I had volunteered for.
Adolescence — a pack of us
chasing boundless joy in unfamiliar places.
In the delirium of first love
I painted her in imagined colors,
hid the portrait deep inside my chest.
Somewhere in that love, without knowing,
I had drawn a line I called respect —
a quiet border no one saw
but both of us felt.
Fortune or misfortune — I cannot say —
every castle built of imagination
crumbles under the trembling weight of the real.
Grievances, victories, loves, hatreds,
all of it, you could say,
has fallen apart.
This shirt — I stitched it myself,
but the thread that made it came from others.
For too many days I wore it,
stained and sour, saying nothing.
Until one unbearable day
I knotted embers into the cloth —
the threads burned in the glowing coals,
and I burned too, in that same rising fire.
Those who heard the story of the burning shirt
all came rushing close,
needles and threads offered from every direction —
all of it the same exhausting sight.
So I gathered threads of every color,
hammered together something new,
called it mine, called it better,
wore it like I had finally learned.
But if I forget to take it off —
it will sour again.
It always does.
This shirt too must be removed.
But for how long —
I do not know.
And perhaps I need not.