Summer began soft—
honeymilk pooled through mango leaves,
pigeons feather-heavy on telephone wires—
the whole world gold—
still ripening—
like something that didn't know how to end.
I remember the river—
thin-*****, sun-fed—
wearing the sky like a borrowed veil—
bruised lavender by dusk,
silver-stitched by midnight.
We were half-salted, half-feral—
knees green-stained,
pockets lined with papaya seeds,
believing if we never named the days
they could never leave us.
Evenings folded in hibiscus hush
mothers calling from verandahs
their voices trailing jasmine heat
but we stayed
bloom-fed—
learning how silence could taste like belonging.
There was a boy
wild-haired, sugar-grinned
who carved his name into the gulmohar—
said it was the only way
to outlive summer.
I never carved mine.
I wanted to belong to something
without leaving a scar.
The river kept what we couldn't—
pocket marbles clouded with spit,
cicada shells,
prayers hushed into cupped palms—
half-wishing, half-forgetting.
When the rains came—
soft at first—
then harder—
we waded knee-deep through the swell,
our laughter thin as dragonfly wings—
something breaking beneath it.
But rivers don't keep secrets.
They carry them.
By August—
the gulmohar stood stripped—
his name unstitched—
washed down to sea.
By September—
the river forgot itself—
spitting up broken dolls,
rusted bicycle chains—
whole summers gutted in the mud.
By October—
we learned
the world is only ever borrowed.
I wonder if the boy remembers
if his name still flickers beneath the water
stitched somewhere too deep to touch.
I never carved mine—
but if you pressed your ear to the current
if you listened long enough—
I swear you'd still hear me,
a salt-thin breath
folded beneath the hush.
wrote this after returning to my grandparents' house—they had cut down the gulmohar tree. I never carved my name into it — but somehow, it still feels like I lost something.