The Land

The land took me in when I was a boy.
Its inhabitants warm like the morning sun,
its scenery a painting that Picasso would envy,
and its promise a dream that seldom let me sleep.
I found solace, comfort and all the clichés
you could find in a place called paradise.
I shared in it a million memories that
I wouldn’t trade even for the rarest diamond.
I cherished in it a thousand priceless moments,
long gone by but never forgotten.
But it didn’t take long for the storm to find the land.
It brought with it loss, tragedy, and pain,
and left behind a bleeding heart that
in its desperation to fulfil a promise long gone by
flooded in a million different ways.
The land is my home.
Barren and lifeless though it may be,
it still invokes the feeling of a hundred butterflies in my stomach,
and so it always will remain my home.

Vinu S. is a passionate author currently in his final year of Engineering. His short story was published in an anthology called ‘The Love I Know’ as part of a national-level short story competition conducted by The Bookoholics and Paper Towns India. 

Featured image: Avinash Kumar / Unsplash