Alone...

Being alone....


Being alone is always a tremor…a fear…a weakness for some….
But for me, it had always been a part of life...and at times life itself...…
Alone in the darkness… left on my own search of light…
Alone in passion…. falling and failing in love…
Alone in dreams…chasing empty clouds…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Time has swept me around…driving me to my way home….
Which I never willed nor wanted…or never thought of…
The darkness around hasn’t set and dawn wasn’t met…
But here I go determined to fight my way through anything and everything…
To fill the emptiness in my heart…or at least to hide it…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Sitting inside the bus...beside a vacant seat...
Watching the farms and lands pass by calmly…
Silent rustling of trees in the middle of the night…
Sky turning shades of black and blue…a sight rare to view…
But something was amiss...confused…improper…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

I have no idea what happened in the past years…
Whether I would have someone back home to welcome me with a warm hug…
Something nice said about missing me all this time…
Someone to feed my hungry stomach and hear my stories…
Or at least someone to fill the emptiness in my heart…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

What I have left behind is a mystery…unbearable…unsolved…
Am I here to replay the quest and get back my past…
Or just to witness the happenings as I always do…
I have no idea of who would be there to receive me…!!
But the fear of staring at a deserted road left alone…terrified me…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Being alone did teach me millions…
In which thousands were moments of pain…
A few hundreds were moments of confusion…
And a few shillings were moments of fear…
But happiness…??
I wonder what I have done to myself....

This travel would be the fastest moment in my life…
Because every other had been a still image…expressing a single view …
I never opted for a caring heart…or a caressing word…
Never a close company…close enough to steal my heart…
Close enough to leave me be in this world…as now…alone…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

If money could solve my problems…I wouldn’t be here…
If love could mend my heart...I wouldn’t be sitting alone…
If my hunt to the solution had been reached…I wouldn’t search for my destination…
If my wounds have been healed…I wouldn’t run for a hide out…
If I did have a shoulder to rest…I wouldn’t let tears wet my cheeks…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

A sudden halt brought me back to my senses…
The bus had stopped and was ready to push me out into the world of ‘loneliness’…
As expected I stood back to view the wet and deserted road leading home…
I had to walk in spite of the muddy waters and sunken roads…
In spite of darkness and gloomy atmosphere into which I should set into…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

I started along the road with a light luggage but a heavy heart….
I know that I have no reason to be like this…
No reason to return to a place which had deserted me years back…
No reason to face the people who turned me out…
But I couldn’t resist…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Looking around I wanted see a few familiar sights and buildings…
My mind was rushing up to fill me with a few related thoughts…
My eyes wandering to see a few missing pieces of my past…
But everything I see seems so new…
Dragging me to wonder whether I had been here before…!!
I wonder what I have done to myself....

With a few more cuts and turns I would get to my house…
Till that I wanted myself to be occupied…distracted perhaps…
I started to hum a known verse, in the middle of which I struck up…
My thoughts rushing years back…I couldn’t sing either….
What has happened to me…!?Could loneliness drive a person to madness…?
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Forgetting the curse and continuing the verse, I tried to gather the wonderful moments in my life…
Wonderful people who made them…wonderful things that bordered those moments…
The sudden disappearance of light from my life…making me search for illusions in dark…
And the disastrous end it has got me into…
Tears flushed…words chocked…vision blurred…
I wonder what I have done to myself.....

I started to walk fast…before my first tear drop could sneak out…
But then…someone touched me…
The softest and wettest touch…the one I had felt before…the one I always wanted…
It was a rain drop that had flown down to touch my cheeks…
Before I could look up it started heavily and I started to run towards my last destination…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Opening the door, I found the house, my house to be empty…and I wet…
I looked around…and took the stairs towards my room…
My room…the only thing I ever remembered and ever loved…
I walked in…though it was accustomed to dust and cobweb…I know it was welcoming…
I recollected memories of my childhood…my toys…my petty scribbling…now just illusions….
I wonder what I have done to myself.....

By the time, rain had stopped and everything seemed immersed in silence…
I kept tracing my room…which had no idea about me other than my childhood…
Not even the pain…hurt…tears…loneliness of its childhood lodger….
I moved towards the balcony and stood up facing my room…
Allowing the cool breeze to caress me from behind and send me into my memories…
I wonder what I have done to myself....

Suddenly something struck me…maybe I remembered something…
Yes…!!My first kiss had been here…from a beautiful woman…maybe my mother…
A huge man carrying me in his arms and cradling me…maybe my dad…
A kid sitting beside my bed and reading stories to me… my brother….
Tears stunk in my eyes…maybe I had never been alone…maybe I had never been loved this much by anyone else….
I wonder what I have done to myself...!!

I will never know what the next day would hold…and what the past had held…
The happiest thing is that I had been loved tremendously by my family…huge enough to cherish…
Even though I stand alone now…those memories are large enough to treasure…
I closed my eyes...and before the first tear could drop down, rain drops nourished my face…
Maybe iam still not standing alone…I’ve someone whose touch I’ve always longed for…
And now I know what to do with myself…

_Ishu…