then and now

Remember how we ran here
Every day after school
To escape the world?
You and I, cozy and comforted
By the warmth of each other's smiles
As the hostile looks each window bore,
Angry disapproval painted red,
Hovered spitefully between bricks,
While the glare of accusing eyes
And the pale shadow of metal sheets
Was all the home we had.

But we sat smirking and smoking bravely
Into the face of reality.
Not caring as long as we were together.
Our pitiful weapons of choice
Withered and failed in combat,
In our denial and defiance
We stood ground, until all hope
dipped into the horizon
alongwith the light of infancy.

and then night fell
we finally emerged from our dark caves
As the image of the sinister stairwell across the street
Sunk out of view.

We sighed in relief no longer
Reminded of the heights left to climb,
The labor yet to pour on to our frail shoulders
Out of the blazing furnace where souls are melted everyday.

Now the ghost of our private lives stand there stark and bare
We’ve stepped off the pedestal into squelching mud and grass
Drowned in it, lived in it, life offered nothing better
But our innocence that once thrived upon the hard, cold, wooden nest
Are now warm coffins in which our rebellion lies stiff and stoned
And secrets that were buried within alcoves have become tombs
For the dying children we once were.

It’s a funeral day as we revisit the tunnels
Realizing  the light that seemed to shine at its end
Was just the setting sun reflecting off the broken glass.
Closed doors firmly say goodbye
You don’t belong here anymore.