By: Suveeksha Viswanathan

When home seems far from home,
And the ever-widening recesses
Taketh me.
Like edifices huge and narrow street,
Implores nature to stretch
Her aching feet.
This overwhelming sense of alienation,
Privy thoughts like daggers
Deplete the soul.
The hermit crab in the wrong shell,
Basks in its own artifice.
Desperate for that familiar reach,
The lonesome pond still and silent,
Shivers with a single breeze.
Little by little,
My heart maneuvers,
The predator aligning with my concupiscence-
A polar bear in the cold waiting-
The seal peeking out from a gaping hole.
Hadn’t it been for the deer to lurk too close,
The crocodile to have feigned silence.
Remember, men with slumber could
Silence their secret musth.
But you my friend
Are in a floating dream.
A frenzy whelp,
With the same fervor wagging,
Everyday,
Unbaffled by the crackling noises of youth.