This city is littered with broken dreams

Memories that slowly ground into dust

The wind grazes my tear-stained cheeks

As I look at familiar spots, strange, empty;

They seem to mock my years of silent pain,

When I wrenched the life I knew from its stubborn roots

Breaking free of its myopic death grip on me

Ending up in a gilded cage, bound by self-loathing.

I hung my hopes and desires out to dry

And fed the flames of a decade in waiting,

Falling into a familiarity I thought was love;

When all I needed was a world of my own.

Dreams died, but fiercer dreams were born

The hurt ripped into me but carved new paths.

I walked away, leaving anger and destruction in my wake.

Into the fiery embrace of healing through isolation.

This is the city where I had it all, but let it go

Where I learnt to fly, but left it behind to soar.

- Nandini Swaminathan ©