A Moment Aflutter

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


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