My dad always says that someday,
my feet will carry me to an unfamiliar place
that looks like home -
with ivory-coloured walls,
coconut treetops dancing in the wind,
the scent of shiuli flowers lingering in the air - and I would walk right in,
without missing a beat,
like I have forever lived just there.
But if I were to waddle along to my room
and do not spot a million empty cardboard boxes staring up at me on my way,
I'd find out, I tell him.
I'd find out when I don't hear
my mum's Abheri ringing through the house
over the pressure cooker's dulcet whistles,
when I want to put my feet up and don't see books strewn on every inch of the bedding,
when the decoloured walls don't smile through the cracks the moment I trace my fingers over them,
I'd find out, when I fall flat on my face while running amok behind my dreams, and the earth beneath feels foreign to my skin, to my mindless mayhem.
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