It All Burned and Was Light

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Lost

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Screaming into the void. Stories, poetry, podcast, and artwork. A blog by Saurabh Rai.
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Poetry

Lost

Saurabh Rai
Jul 19, 2023
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Lost

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

I could be lost

in a village somewhere,

in the dark moist streets

lined with brick houses and sundry shops,

the crickets chirping

by the side of pools of mud and dark water,

the washed-up moon

glistening like someone’s bloated face.

I set my bike on stand

and decide to buy a cigarette

from the cluster of shops near a railway line.

They inquire my name

and ask if I am new around here,

but I smile

and let the question linger a while

like the plumes rising in the air.

‘I could be lost,’ I say —

‘but, don’t worry.’


Once I got lost when I was five.

I was visiting a relative’s place,

and they gave me a big coin,

and I wanted to spend it on icecream,

and maybe I got far,

or took too many turns,

but just seconds into

slurping the melting candy,

the ecstasy turned to panic

as I realized I didn’t know

how to get back where I came from.

For a few minutes

the world with its

blue boundaries and black shadows of people

caved on me,

buried me under,

and tears welled up in my eyes,

till a girl at the house I was visiting

who followed me on my way

reached and rescued me.

I wish I remembered that angel’s face. But alas.

That is one terrifying memory. 


There are other ways

to lose oneself as well—

I could be lost

in a dream

which came to pass

and broke with the sun’s first rays,

leaving in its wake a fuzzy feeling

that it was a good dream

and I wanted it to last,

and I sometimes think about it

though I don’t remember much of it.


I could be lost in time

(more like stuck in time)

with no way to get back or go forward (?)

‘cause I am trapped like a bug in amber1

to this exact Present

and often I don’t like anything.

And I don’t have a quarrel with time,

I honestly just wish to

put my hand on something

and feel it passing.

Like something slips through

your fingers

and even if you can’t stop it from slipping

you can at least feel it

as it is leaving your hold.

So when weeks and days

pass in haze,

I want

a receipt of sorts.


As we sit gazing,

we hear the roar of an engine,

a train rustles past us

like a caterpillar made of lights

and we watch it like children,

stupefied.

1

“Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?” — a quote from ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut.

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