HOUSE TO HOME
Fighting a losing battle with my spirit everyday
How I would try to transform my house to a home
Would search for a way all over; asked strangers who didn’t care
The dictionary defines house as ‘a building to reside’
And that was precisely what I returned to every night
After the tiring work would tie my patience
And test it on motley of characters
Masked or faceless; shrewd or tactless
I would climb the stairs, dragging my limbs like that luggage
Too heavy to carry yet couldn’t be left behind
Slumped on the sofa, I’d gaze at the city lights far below
Till the oven would curtly declare thrice that it had done its daily job
I remember how one full-moon night you quietly tip-toed
With your muddy paws into my sanitized life
Cowed under my car, soaked and quaking in the unseasonal rain
Separated from loved ones, lonesome and wretched
Hungry for some warmth and amongst cold strange faces
It still astonishes me how alike we both used to be
And also how things can change in a night
Now every day, I return to a home
Which the dictionary says is ‘where one's domestic affections are centered’
I often wonder who rescued whom?
A writer and an artist, Ankita Sharma resides in India. She has authored five titles. Her poems and stories have been published in various anthologies and lit mags including 3moonmag, BRAG, Versification, Green Ink Poetry, Sunnyg (radio show) and others. Her artworks have appeared on the cover pages of a few Indian and international books.
