I Miss A Stranger Poem by Parisha Shukla

I remember—
How beautifully I sat on my swing one day, the world's quiet dark for that second grader. The winds rushed as if they had a meeting by seven. The clouds above stared, wondering whether to shower on this little kiddo or not.

All the while, I saw a person in my room, admiring me as someone special, even though I didn't know who she was.
She was covered in thoughts that reminded me of mine; at least I wasn't alone in being like that.

She called me upstairs. I didn't think, I just went there.
I found her by my piano— and before I could think much of it, she started singing to me—

Sing you to sleep. Soon we'll be dreaming. We'll carry on, I will always be your—

And the very next moment, I opened my eyes.
I wondered whether it had been a dream or something truly strange.
'The exact words— the words I had wanted to hear for so long. How were they fulfilled by a stranger? '

Long after, I rested, and that rest transformed into something else.
The fact that I was so caught up in my own things, I woke up again to a beautiful sunshine.

I went towards my diary.
I was nineteen by then.
I saw a photograph of my nine-year-old self, looking exactly as I had in that dream.

And suddenly, I realised—

That stranger was me at nineteen..