A SYNONYM.

Summary:

Her name is Jos.

She welcomed me at a chilly doorstep.

I was weary and luminous with enervation.

Leaving home for her suggested a joke.

Her breathes were cold over my shoulder when she said

“This could be Home, you know”

I nodded slowly, and in a second

The wind pulled me to a sickly bed.

Every morning greeted me with heavy lungs, shortened breathes.

Pain- stricken, I wrote to her “MA, I am learning to breathe”

She laughed.

And wrote me a song with frozen lyrics.

I chewed on them with courage, defiance and then, regret.

“Give me a Dictionary” my frail attempt to talk

For what?”

“To find a synonym for Home”

She brought a map instead, and I spat at it acidly.

I sank into my cold bed to mourn.

Till she let visitors in

To fan the warmth in me.

I fell into their darkly beauty and resonating accent.

Picked funny verses from their songs and moved my legs to learn their steps.

She was kinder now ย “Can I make these stories an Art on your skin?”

“No” and I turned over.

Her name is Jos.

And this story continues…

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