Neha Sudhakar

You loved to call yourself a nomad

You had been to places whose existence I could only dream of

You taught me the names of drinks,I still can’t pronounce

You spoke about green meadows, music shows

Autumn trees, and wild bees

You spoke about adventures of tigers chasing you

And times you tried to chase them back.

Every time I met you

You were a stranger

the farther you went, the stranger you became.

you told me about the weirdest of towns

About an all consuming waterfall where people liked to end their lives

About a city of silhouettes,where people romanticised forty-five degrees of heat

But you narrated them all like a 40 year old middle-class man.

Apathy in every word.

At the end of every conversation 

You complained 

You told me you hated those cities,their bricks and buildings 

I realised you haven’t been travelling all this while

You were escaping from a city to another, everytime that you realised you couldn’t survive

You were a nomad in the true sense

but you came back here every single time

Right at where you left.

and it all left me wondering,despite all those glorious places you’ve been to,

Why would you escape to a city as barren as me.