---

I remember it as a cradle,

where golden light pooled in the corners of silent streets,

where balconies spilled music into lanes alive with the scent of rain and incense,

where trams sang like living things

and the pulse of the river carried every secret and every laughter,

every tremor of hope and belonging that wrapped itself around my ribs and would not let go,

where the evenings dripped honeyed light over faces I would never forget,

over the first stirrings of wonder and of love,

infinite and unbroken.

Now the palaces crumble.

The streets groan.

Windows gape like empty eyes.

Nostalgia seeps slow as honey,

thick and cloying,

spinning me in dizzying circles,

drawing me into warmth I cannot inhabit,

yet it curdles in my mouth,

sharp as glass,

slicing through sweetness,

leaving only the bitter tang of what is lost and cannot be reclaimed.

Balconies hang, skeletal.

Trams screech.

Rust gnaws the rails.

It was once a chalice,

brimming with wine that glowed like molten sunlight,

endless in its generosity,

where the river mirrored the sky

and I saw my own beginnings reflected in its currents,

whole, tender, vast, alive.

Now it is a tomb.

Dust in every corner.

Ash over every promise.

Shadows twitch where no one walks.

The river breathes—slow, uneven—as if drowning in itself.

I reach for a door that isn’t there.

The smell of wet earth clings to my hands, then vanishes.

The bell tolls—once, twice—then stops, as if it too has forgotten.

The wind pulls at the edges of my name, tears it thin.

I taste rust.

I hear a child’s laugh but it breaks like a match struck in rain.

I want to speak but my throat is a hollow stairwell.

Memory flares—too bright—then goes dark, leaving only the echo of my own heartbeat.

I crave it still, though I flee.

I ache for its embrace, though it would crush me.

I hover between love and exile,

a pilgrim in a land of ghosts,

torn between memory’s bloom and the decay at my feet,

forever circling,

forever suspended,

unable to return,

unable to forget,

pulled and abandoned,

shattered,

broken,

drowning in the arms of what once was.

---

Pritha, a high school teacher, finds her deepest connection in poetry, which mirrors the soul and transforms the ordinary into magic. Her students’ curiosity and humour keep her inspired, even as she dreams of travelling the world and savouring its cultures. Tagore is her refuge, a calm amid chaos, and though she chooses to believe in humanity’s goodness, she often feels dogs make better companions.