#NaPoWriMo Day 2: Somewhere I Knew.

Somewhere around the bend,
Down a yellow leaf-strewn road,
Lie memories of a lifetime ago–
Some vague, some vivid;
Maybe some ten paces away,
Is a street I once knew,
Lined with towering, green asocas.

Somewhere in my dreams,
The streets are full of life
As they once used to be
When I first scraped my knee,
Running carefree and happy–
Ghosts of laughter still ringing loud
Calling me back down Memory Lane.

Somewhere at the end of the road
Was where a guava orchard stood,
Where I climbed up the trees,
Swinging on the branches.
If only I had known back then
That I’d never see those days again,
I’d keep the memory safe and sound.

Somewhere all along the sidewalks
Lay red poinciana petals scattered,
Some piled into heaps by the corner,
Some bringing life to the idyllic lane.
As though the sky were on fire,
Petals keep falling from the Heavens–
How far away it all feels now!

Somewhere I once used to know
Now lies abandoned and overgrown;
Our memories overrun by creeper vines,
Not a hint of familiarity in sight.
If I went back there today, I’d be lost–
For words, for a way out, in nostalgia;
This was the only home that ever felt right.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

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Today’s prompt via napowrimo.net is ‘a place’, but with very specific details. I chose to write about a very beautiful place that I spent my earliest years in. I’ve never truly been able to forget about this place, even though so much of its memory feels like a page out of another life. It’s a picture that I cannot quite erase from my head and, now that I think about it, it’s a good thing I haven’t forgotten completely!

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Featured Image by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash