By Aarshia Ray
The streets gleam with yellow lights overhead,
Enthusiasm of the frenzy of humankind,
Sophistication of urbanism,
Elegant vehicles of modern society
Racing past flawless roads with prim green dividers.
Rubber tyres scratching concrete
With its air of independence—
Stifling freedom grappling a metropolitan.
I look out of the glass window:
People with individual cares
The city composed of smiles and sorrows
Exact and intermingled in a gigantic web
Melancholic overtones of wind and pollution.
The city never dies:
You need a heart for it to break.
But I am hopeful,
I search for a heart in every soul:
In everyone, I look for you.
My family names me emotional
Oh, too emotional, sensitive, sentimental,
So trusting, so lost in childish dreams
Of wonder and innocent delight.
Some kind ones say, with a tone
That speaks of sympathy rather than understanding,
“That’s an imaginative soul.”
I remain being hopeful.
I am not unknown to darkness, no,
But I believe in the presence of light.
And everybody agrees to one stance:
“That one’s too delicate for this dark world.”
But I will look for you,
In every corner, in every alley,
In every turning of my vehicle,
Whichever road I land in,
And whichever path I choose to take,
In every face I have to face,
Every summer’s parching strain
And every winter’s comfort slumber
And every time Spring’s bird chirps
However loud the city’s honk be—
Every time the sky cries,
And every time it smiles at me,
When the storm strikes out electricity,
And we are all cast in suffocating distress,
Hopeless, miserable, confused, scared,
I will think of the light,
And I will search for it:
I will search for you.