the thing with the stories

to be sewn shut in the drape of time,
I find my parched skin crawled by stories,
lived, unraveling now, to yet be seen:

there was a maid at my kindergarten,
who brightened up when I offered her
a sweet at the year end, in shadow of
my mum beaming at me for who I was.

there were these ladies yesterday, who
asked a kid in rags what he wanted to
eat, asked him at the sweet shop, made
me smile through, crinkling at the eyes.

the story unfolds, the steps are falling
down, I am sucking a candy, a worm
sits atop my molars, as normalcy fails,
welcome me, I am back to the void.

how perturbing the silence feels, it rings
in the air, the Beatles are painted,
in the dark on my wall, a snake of a
head phone coiled on my leg of lone.

further days further, my eyes zoom
to take a shot of a chirping boy, his
hands adjoined, being in a prayer
at peace of mind his hunched self.

I see a death bed, years to be gone,
(or may be not), a quill stands right
spewing ink of words, there’ll be no tear,
just an accompanying draft of air.

the threads are broken, no longer sewn,
my skin shivers in the cold of the stories,
lived, unraveling now, to yet be seen.

.

*Linking it up with Bjorn’s Time-travel prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads and Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

Image credits: Past-Present-Future by Norbert Papp