Paradise, Fool || Poetry

A Poem for My Friends

A friend once said that all she wants in life
Is to own a house with many windows
Go vegetable shopping for two hours every morning
Then hang out with her friends
And return home to her books and films and sleep.
Last night, in the cab,
My friend put my head on her shoulder, rested hers against mine
And though my back was hurting from sitting in that posture
I didn't move an inch
Watched the streetlights fall on our hands
And slither past
On and on and away and out of reach.
She was leaving, and she told me not to be sad about it.
I asked her how;
It's an ache that I can taste at the back of my throat
A sadness I'm so accustomed to but one that still stings like new each time it comes.
But it's okay, she said.
Many years ago, me and my friend ended up lighting a papad on fire
And instead of screams, I remember her laugher
The way she tried to blow out the gas fire, then threw her head back and collapsed against me on realising her stupidity.
We no longer talk
But I often think about that day.
And that day, back in primary school, when a friend offered me a piece of cheese
And though I loved her, I hated the cheese and spat it out when she wasn't looking.
24th March, her birthday, but I always forget to wish her.
In high school, a friend and I did so many shenanigans together
Our handwriting started to twin
And that other friend who taught me how to comb wet hair to keep my curls intact;
A trick I still use though I haven't spoken to her in ages.
When a friend once told me she wanted to be someone's muse
I immediately tried to write a poem for her
But realised I have no metaphors for my friends
Just their names and their smiles and their ten-digit phone numbers.
If I were to invent a language of my own
I'd name happiness after all my friends
Including the ones no longer here with me
Who made a fruit salad for me at dinner and ended up giving both of us gastric
Who spoon-fed me lunch on days when I was too tired to exist
Who held me in chokeholds out of love
Who went on metro rides to nowhere with me
Who shared ridiculous stories about a cycle hitting a bus and winning
Who taught me to love rice and appreciate food after twenty-two years of me only begrudgingly eating it
Who drew a live watercolour portrait of me sitting on the college lawns, even when we were yet to become friends
Who showed up to my lonely apartment in North Campus and made it a home
And those who allowed me to crash at theirs on my lowest days, no questions asked.
Who enabled my first anxiety-inducing but very successful "heist"
Who once came home from college with a hammer in hand because fuck relying on anyone else
Who made me read MXTX (and changed my life!)
Who trusted me with her precious pen drive full of pirated animes
Who walked alongside the Brahmaputra with me
Who knew I was crushing on another friend long before I did
Who loved me like the best mother-in-law one could ever ask for (sorry not sorry)
Who sent me a custom-made birthday gift though we had never met offline
And those who live miles and miles away but always spam my inbox with every little life update.
There are days when my best friend and I call each other and don't utter a word
Simply listen to each other breathe
And in the language I'd invent, I'd call that peace,
Her being, my home.
So when my friend, who I feared I might never see again, smiled at my teary face and said, we'll be okay
I chose to believe her.