I sit in the same room, in sunlight with streaks of sepia ,
stretching across the walls. evoking nostalgia,
for moments that didn't even happen, flashes of vivid recall.
The colour of your eyes feels like a familiar brown,
your voice, a comforting sound.
Even when I just met you, met you, it all felt like déjà vu,
A decade since I first texted you.

The sepia streaked rays stretch beyond time
that seems to have stopped. Yet years go by,

comfortable silence
at the table. You take your cup of chai
as you lower the rim of your glasses, for the paper,
It’s a timeless fable, the tea is cold, a familiar sigh;
I know her. The cup comes back 15 minutes later,
warm. aur uski shakl theek hai, sab theek hai.

those 15 minutes are now 15 years apart ,
now there's no table here, just the sofa, no news just,

uncomfortable silence.
then the chai swirls, and the paperwork-is all that's left behind. the smile fades away,
the milk dissipates-chai ki shakl acchi hai is all you say
(but not to whom you wish heard it).

Cars pacing down the road, the buses entering and leaving the depot.
The world keeps moving, but you’ve become the axis
my everything always rotated on. It was a first for me too,
starting a book and skipping to a chapter far ahead, yet knowing the plot
knowing that I would find my favourite character and favourite part.
It's that reassuring smile, maybe the zest for chai and also ,the eyeroll of concern .
The animated hand signs, you just being by my side, holding my hand at every turn.

the raindrops start falling, just as the dust starts to settle --
over the frame with the wilted flowers; on the mantle of a fate jilted lover,
candle burning with all its might, flickering through the night-
Its strength wanes , the light, like me it's a lonely fight,

and now a lonely life.

how can i believe that dreams are destiny,
When all I dream of is when you were mine, and here with me.