serendipity

the river ravi

authors note: this poem is dedicated to one of my very best friends, it's her birthday today, and goddammit i love this girl so so so much.

i don't think anyone has supported me like she has, at times when i feel like deleting this book or genuinely just giving up on writing, she's been my number one supporter and she's always hyping me up ?? and i can't even explain how much she means to me.

mino, im sorry for not updating on friday, i was saving this for your birthday 💖

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on a train
full of passengers
unaware of their destination
a woman with a voice so full of pain
sang a woeful melody to her child

she sang about the river ravi
her voice was so domineering
so powerful, so commanding
my heart seemed to beat at her will

her voice was the disastrous yet gorgeous mixture between,
please never stop singing, every words of yours is medicine to my aching body
&
if you don't stop singing, my heart might come to a dangerous stop

foolish as i was
i continued to listen
because this was the type of pain
my heart couldn't get enough of

and just like a train stops
slowly and then all at once
she stopped singing
with eyes now leaking of tears

she dropped the baby on the ground
as if she couldn't bear hold it anymore,
as if its weight was too much for her tired arms,
as if she had realised that it wasn't her baby that she was holding.

her baby was long gone, he was in his cot when they had smashed the door, rummaged the house for any valuables and then shot the baby like it was just another animal for hunting.

her husband was yelling at her to run, the train would leave any second now but how could a mother leave her child behind. her husband half dragged, half carried her towards the moving train full of passengers who came from different families with different backgrounds but they shared a thing in common, they had all left someone they loved behind.

she had forgotten everything except the song about the ravi river. maybe because she sang it to her baby every night to make him fall asleep.

little did she know that, that night her baby would never wake up from his sleep again.

- a poem about my brave ancestors who sacrificed everything so i could live a better life than them. no poetry can do justice to amount of pain you went through, thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

____________________________

i saw a documentary about something similar to this and was so inspired to write about it.

on the train, the mother was holding a few blankets trying to convince herself that it was her son. she had forgotten everything including her name, but she did not forget the song.

also as mentioned before, this poem is dedicated to my friend.

love love love - s