Antisocial Diaries /3/ Poem by Abhisek Bandopadhyay

These lights
are rather bright, the
floor carpeted, clean;
the people mostly
young, spry, kempt; the
windows clear, scenery usual,
this white ceiling tiled
and uniformly lit, the air
mild. There
should be no cause
for discomfort. I'm acquainted
with some. They slip in and out
of sight. We speak at times, of
urgent or unnecessary things.
At times, I rise and
wander in unintended search
for something I can't identify, but find
missing. I push
myself to wonder. I try
and
evaporate in memory. I discern
the inside of
a familiar room,
with all its
known furnishings:
the decked and mirrored
dresser, two towering steel
wardrobes, a high table behind me,
laden bookshelves, the shine from
a floor with hypnotic, fibonacci spirals
etched on each square plate of mosaic,
the red, parted curtains along the many
open windows, and a huge double bed with
enough crawlway for trunks to be stowed
while tiny children played; beside it,
a narrow thoroughfare to a balcony,
where sits
the strong-willed matriarch in her fifties,
soaking the early-morning sun
and sieving grains of rice, while
her husband, a fragile man of care,
kindness, and lighthearted banter, smiles
as he sees me there, when
in the adjacent hall, my
causal pair engage each other
in hearty conversation, and nothing
is or could go
awry. It
must've been minutes
of walking without a sense
of time, place, or presence,
until I stopped to gaze about
this bustling metropolis,
with its resplendent sights and glowing people
that never were essential;
...where is that room?
...where are those people?
...are they here somewhere?
...within the walls I now call home?
NO! !
that home
exists no longer!
my people.. breathe too less.
Around me, in this moment,
is no one
and nothing
real.