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Calling on an Empty Home


CALLING ON AN EMPTY HOME



Familiar streets, familiar buildings,
An old key to match the rusting lock
A stubborn door, weathered and wise -
Lift it to the right and it creaks open.
The old wooden table, with notches and scratches,
The same burn from the spilt milk.
I wince - I feel the sting, a decade too late.
The same wall with incomprehensible dashes
Like ants crawling in zigzagged fashion,
A letter, a dash, a number,
An unraveled code of growth and wisdom,
With dusty trophies as evidence.
A worn desk with crumbling papers
And jammed books,
All holding the memories of a time that once was,
A time, never found again.

Familiar walls, familiar pages -
An absence of faces, an absence of voices.
Memories volleyed from wall to wall,
Fate decreed, page after page,
Now lying undisturbed, unheard.
A flood of nostalgia unleashed
Through the opened door
Into a cold, fragile mind,
Brimming, overwhelmed,
Screeching with echoes.
Sound upon sound upon sound,
Visions in multitude!

And outside - a deathly silence.


- Maryam Kaleem


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