Familiar Stranger

By Avinash Jodha

I enter each day like

Into a room that

Promises familiarity of the dark

Patches, their blankness

Necessary invention

To float free, seamless

Into a world that thrives

On picking seams, there

Are jungle sounds, I wish not

To hear, the sapling

Of a mistimed smile grown

Into a thorny bush,

Hedges of meticulously

Planned memories learn a life

Of their own, come

From unsuspected corners

With moist branches

I’m an acrobat, a diver, a magician too

I elude jungles, oceans, spectators

Living in a room,

Entering each day

Inside, a familiar stranger watch

The sprint in his shadow gait, his grace

Crossing the threshold of oceans, do not

Look into his eyes there are

Jungles holding breath…

By Avinash Jodha