by Soyeenka Mishra
One day— one day perhaps,
You will read these thoughts
I’m pouring life into this ink—
Sometime, months later; years,
Decades, centuries, millennia even may it be
You’ll stumble upon my words accidentally
By some curious twist of fate—
Feet shuffling forward on their way on autopilot
But your gaze would fight the inertia
Staying glued, as you read more and more,
Of that which would resonate so violently
Within the very core of who you are,
Your eyes hungrily devouring those lines
Ricocheting from one side to the other
Spanning across the pages that most didn’t care
To spare more than just a passing glance at
At that very moment—
You won’t be a reader bent over a piece of paper
Nor would I, the hand that wrote on it
In another time, in another world
At that very moment—
We’d be two souls standing facing one another
Each blinded from the other by
The mirror of time erect between them
We’d set eyes upon each other, unseeing:
Our sight finds only our own reflection,
And see all that the words mean to us
We’d extend a hand forward to touch the glass
Palm to palm, warmth bleeding from mine to yours—
Connecting, and yet somehow, not
(since we wouldn’t know that we did)
On that plane, in a special pocket of existence
Hidden in the place that stretched between
What is real and what is not
Then, something or the other—
A mumbled word carried over a soft breeze,
An energetic chirp from a cluster of trees,
A pat on your shoulder, or a random touch—
Would cleave the moment apart in two
Sundering the connection, not quite cleanly
Perhaps by then, I’d be
A forgotten whisper of dust between the stars,
And you’d feel the bleary disorientation
Of getting wrenched back unceremoniously
Into your world against your will, heart aflutter
Perhaps you’d miss the unlikely companion
In thought and belief, you’d found
Having always trusted yourself to be
Alone in the persuasion
Never mind the separation—
Be not glum in humour to find yourself alone,
But rejoice in your condition
For having touched this odd soul of mine
Transcending time and space and laws of nature
Whence I’ve been waiting since forever
For someone, someone like you— you,
Who’d finally understand, and appreciate
And carry with them wherever they go,
Someone’s thoughts and words—
Someone, who once existed
In another time, in another world
