Why do we hurry home after work?

I hurry home every day

after work

I tear through traffic

as the clogs of my mind work overtime

thinking about some empty gally

that would share my grief

for a few seconds

Homesickness

isn't something you should feel in

the city that watched you grow

From a kid throwing tantrums 

before school bus

to a girl running across the road

chasing the bus

for work

I never hated my work

Doesn't meant it satisfied my hunger

I always craved more

as I stepped into

the familiar busy streets

moving with the flow

becoming another unimportant face

in the crowd

and I would frown at the

mossy walls

that dared to go green 

in the world full of

concrete grey and

insipid zebra crossings

But my frown would disappear

as the familiar vanilla fragrance would

crawl up my nose

and I would wrap myself in the

blanket of comfort

protecting myself against the world

thinking I'm more than enough for myself

And the next day

I would step out of the train

And back into the crowd

why I thought I was enough

and let myself lull into a peaceful dream

And then I would hurry home

My hunt for empty roads 

begin once again...

-Eena.

***

This poem was inspired from Dilip Chitre's poem

'Father Returning Home'. There was this particular sentence from the poem that I loved the most.

'Now I can see him getting off the train
Like a word dropped from a long sentence'

Lots of love,

Eena.