The poetry of space

Lately I've been reminiscing 

Of all the people I used to know 

These people were me

At the porch of a house that we once called home 

Gathered cousins 

But I'd sit with one, that favourite brother 

Hot afternoons 

When the rest of the world napped,

But we were stubborn kids

Sitting on the porch 

Sipping on our Coca Cola and Sprite, 

Feeling like conquerors 

Watching the dogs stuck outside the gate 

Watching the lazy world, the lazy time pass by. 

I reminisce 

About all the evenings my elder brothers took me along to impress their girlfriends 

Of all the tiny umbrellas I collected by the footpath, 

While the elders sipped on their lassi's

Of all the mangoes we'd find in the backyard, 

The backyard smelled of ripe alphansoes and dry leaves 

Of how a popular 80's song takes me back to my mothers kitchen

Where she mindlessly hummed her cooking away 

Of Enrique and how it takes me back to my sisters bedroom, forbidden to the eyes of a child, a lair of secretive teen years 

I reminisce 

When I pass the streets of juhu

And see my ghosts 

Floating with the wind 

Faint but not gone 

They pass through me 

Giving me a subtle chill 

I reminisce  of who I used to be 

Of all the people I met 

Standing where I stand now 

Twinkling fairy lights of a wedding 

Winter winds in the summer 

Songs my past standing behind me 

I realize, it's not the memory that makes one reminisce 

For memories are not kept in the mind 

They're kept in spaces 

Spaces 

Seen 

Felt 

Smelt 

Stepped on 

Habited 

Laughed in 

Cried in 

And de ja vu'ed in

Reminisce you will, surely, when you go back to these spaces 

For the porch, the backyard, the garden, the closed doors, the footpaths, the songs echoing within the walls, all of it will show you 

Your dreams 

Your memories 

You