Becoming a Refugee Overnight

You plan a change,
A chosen exchange,
Travel to a new town,
Still heart suspire and groan,
Suddenly, if you are to flee,
Not an imagination or game or glee,
Oh heart! How do you beat,
On this sudden change of seat.

You give away possessions,
Once that were your obsession,
Thought giving others to cherish,
Mind still reels on the perish,
Overnight your world is in a bag,
All that you carry is on your back,
Oh mind! How do you contemplate,
On this instance of possession-less state.

Had a place of my own,
A cosy dwell under the sun,
A dream to be somebody great,
Now I am a nobody,
Waiting for charity from anybody,
All I have now is a shattered fate,
Oh eyes! How to stop the tearful sorrow,
When every breath is a borrow.

A stadium to practice ball,
A theatre to act out a dramatic fall,
A stage to synchronise recitals,
A room for steadfast rebuttals,
All is now broken,
Every single dream blackened,
Oh life! How do you reclaim,
The days and weeks tyrant has taken.

Sreeyantha is a person who sees the world in all the colours of the rainbow. A creative homemaker who wishes to capture the universe’s beauty in poems, paintings and short essays. You can read a collection of her poems here.

Featured image: Volunteers wait for refugees as a train from Poland arrives at Berlin’s central train station, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 2022. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch