BY KAAJAL AHUJA

Thank You for the Inconvenience

 

I walked through a garden far somewhere

A canvas painted in the month of May

But the painting brought me no delight

And each step that I took, took me nowhere.

The lush green smell of Earth filled the breath

I look

When I saw the smoke coming from an old

Chimney;

I had to look.

Serene, like a white cloud of hope it spread its wings everywhere.

Only it was gray.

 

 

It disturbed what I saw and felt

It disturbed every sense

For now when my feel touched the soil I fell in touch with a greater soul.

I fell the last hundred years that had passed.

I fell in control.

 

It made its way slowly

Caressing me with its armless body

Just like the crimson morning rays

That with their gentle touch, open up the new bud

Only I had found you were gray.

I wanted you close

And ate every word you spoke

They brought me hope and made my

Heart feel whole.

 

But you were different, a different colour.

Not like the ordinary gray,

Not reticent or dull

You were something more…

Lighting my soul on fire…a red,

Only getting stronger.

 

But you weren’t a red or a blue or black,

You were something new.

For no colour on the canvas held the slightest resemblance to you.

The directions, the yellow flowers of the sun bowed was yours

Were you their king?

But then why did the butterflies encircle your head

And why, o why, did the birds sing?

 

Why did it matter

You weren’t my king.

You were just a friend keeping me warm,

Holding on.

The fire inside my heart was still alive though

Only it was turning shades of blue

But you were around

And that’s all that mattered.

 

Your words soon changed to ice

And daggered my heart bringing pain

So what if my heart shattered,

When you spoke? You spoke.

You said there was no chance to leave.

That in the canvas I was stuck.

All there was, was the garden and its muck.

You asked me to be happy, to make do with the view.

 

Then one day out of the blue,

You changes from blue to black.

That’s when I knew something was wrong,

When there was no more song

A jet of red brought contrast to the black

When my feet touched the thorns

And the heads of the flowers fell too low

And the blackness of fear that blinds was everywhere.

I felt like I could smell despair.

 

The butterflies fell to your feet as you walked.

But you walked along.

Stamping the one’s on your path

Where I don’t know what skeletons lay.

 

I took everything that was my own

And ran far away from that picture of May.

Because in my heart I knew

That beyond that garden that took me nowhere.

Beyond the mirage of control,

Beyond the choking smoke,

The entire world at my feet lay.

It was time to find the way.

 

So I left the smoke behind

And thanked it for changing colour

For had it not darkened I would never have left

And known of the high beyond the

Garden’s gate.