room-nineteen

[room-nineteen]

Nothing happened in the way I wanted. Every corner of this house is haunted.

I miss Sri Lanka. I miss Ammi’s cooking and Thathi bothering her while she tends to the chicken curry, which doesn’t quite taste like Rani’s but is just as good. 

But every corner of this island reminds me of you. I can’t walk past the soap aisle in Keels without seeing the lilac and pink shades of Misumi soap. I can’t go to my sports meet without the fear that your friends who hate me might also be lingering in the red, gold, brown and green coloured stands. I see you everywhere I go, which reminds me of how much I love you and miss you which makes me see you in everything and everywhere I go. It’s my little Sisyphus complex. I want to be back in Beppu where nothing is like you, where I’m too swamped with work to think about you. And when I do think about you, because all roads lead to you, Japan or Sri Lanka, I can comfort myself with the fact that there’s a dark blue ocean that keeps us apart.

I want to be home, here in Sri Lanka, and cherish these moments I might not have for a while. But you linger. And your lingering makes me hollow. That even Ammi’s soft strokes across my brow, as I curl up between her and Thathi, aren’t enough to wipe away the throbbing ache of my heart and head that longs for you.

Let me be. Let me be at peace. At peace in a place that was my first home. My first, before you became my only other.