Free to the Heavens (collection of short poems)

That Last Night

Three....two...one...

And it struck midnight, March 23rd, 2018.

I stared at the wall clock...it plainly said, this was the day.

For the last two months I'd aced every drop of sweat from my body, did till the last of my energy left with me...I was determined, I'll do damn good in my Boards. It will decide my career and that's what I wanna achieve in life!..and fought for it! Every Second, every day....

There's a huge pile of book in that study table, thin and thick ones... a plenty of subjects.. some by renowned authors, some from large publishers..each claiming being the best. And there I, spending endless sleepless nights with them.
Cramming up dumb things, solving a few numericals.
That was the monotonic state I was in.

The clock said, this is your last night.

Today, will be your last exam.

After that, it all will be over. Forever.

School life.

I'd been numb for the moment, thinking about a building that we used to call, Kendriya Vidyalaya Barrackpore (Army). What's so special about that school? What makes you weep for that place that once you hated to go? And yet, you KNEW it's over that why yet you're crying?

The same clock. The same pale face. Five minutes passed since midnight.

Yet I was in delusions...a terrible state that I can't express myself.. some words, some sentences...nah not enough to feel that. Nostalgia? Nope.
Sadness? Neither. Strange? Quiet a bit. Rest is unknown.

My thoughts enraged, they told me...focus! Focus on studies! You still have an exam left! You need to score in that too! You have a future! Work hard! School, it's now only a gone memory! Forget that! Memorize these concepts...! Practice more! A few hours left only! HURRY!

But I can't.

Those fingers gone numb completely, can't even write a basic syllable..can't even draw a line straight. It was neither nervousness nor exhaustion...it was that same strange feeling.

I'll go to the exam hall tomorrow, give that final paper, come out and return home. That's it! What's of so much bragging in that?

Later you'd realise...it was the time you all sat under the same roof, with them whom you grew since childhood...with whom you've known for 12 long years! With those people who define friendship in the most permanent way, even in this world of treachery and aloofness.. and never again you'll be together.

Neither you realised that day will also be the last moments with your striped shirt and grey uniform. Later you'd realise...that uniform had never been so heavy in your entire life. And in next moment, you put off them, with only tears to accompany you as they went into the almirah...finally, they'll get a long profound rest.

I saw a little boy who was sooooo happy to get a new school bag! That boy gallantly went for his first day at school to meet new friends like him. But the very first day, got scolded for spilling water and that made him so afraid of all those teachers and so he decided never to come school again! Each morning his maa and pa woke him up so early, got annoyed and wrestled to go to school. That boy rebelled in all possible ways cause he hated that school! Then what suddenly made him to cry for it? As I was....

The wall clock. I just hated its dumb face.

It only swept with time, never let those gone moments to hit back again to the shore.

I'm not an adult yet. Neither I can be right now! I'm still a child; who loves to discuss football and finctions with everyone! Yeah, im still that kiddo who'd been punished by many times for playing Pokémons in class! I'm still that teen who's fond of chubby eating! Loves food ever! I'm still that boy who had crushes and blushed every time talking to a girl! I'm still that boy who loved to write poems and essays out of an empty mind, gazing those stars in the twilight sky! I still get lost in my own world! I still daydream things! I'm still a fanboy of pop culture, and also that boy who just did things!

How irony, they told you in elementary, "the school is your second home".. how foolish was I then as I thought maybe it's because you spend the whole of BORING six hours here!

How foolish was I, that it took me years to understand the meaning of that simple thought you're taught once a long time ago...a long time ago...

1:30 pm, March 23rd 2018..

A bell rang. The exam got over, and so I was finally out of the horror of that last night....

~Himadri Saha