Sitting on the bench on a windy evening,
The bus schedule doesn’t seem right,
He hears neither smoke nor that funky horn,
He longs for that journey home.

This trip back home had to come,
He breathes a heavy sigh, exhausted,
The weary look and the blank face,
The ***** cap hides the grey lines,
The silver watch still shows the time,
Tonight, he goes home.

“Mama, she taught me all she can”
“She worked the fields and the mills”
His eyes lit up at the sound of the engine,
The bus comes around the corner,
Dusty windshield with a crack,
Tires that have rode a million miles,
That’s where he’s going today,
A million miles back home

He sits by the window,
A bag with his world in it,
A wallet with pennies for a ride,
A card for what he used to be,
An identity that never matched the world,
Lost and found, stamped on his forehead,
Sitting in the ‘Return to Sender’ pigeonhole

Days of joy seemed short-lived,
Nights by the road seemed cold,
The rain drenched and the sun burned,
He closes his eyes and wishes it would change,
Dreams of a cottage and a convertible,
How they seem to be at a distant

“Mama, I’m coming home”
“Home is where my head lays to sleep”
No more of loud bangs and broken walls
No more screams and cries of the broken-*****
“I’ve seen enough, Mama”
“Of this world and what it can be like”
The misery and disease,
The war and terror,
Decades of violence and they never seem to learn,
An eye for an eye makes this world go blind.

It’s hard to smile anymore,
Yet, he still tries to manage one every day,
No matter how difficult the day appears,
‘Cause he knew it would have been worse,
He would have been dead under all that rubble,
No pulse beating and no Sun to see shine tomorrow

He’s smiling although his heart aches,
He smiles although his cold inside,
“I’m smiling…and I’m coming home Mama”
“Back home, to your lovely bread and strawberry jam”
He nods of to sleep,
The dark and hardened lines visible on his face,
He longs for his journey back.

Vijaya Balan (2009)