Detective.
And when that day you left all of a sudden without giving me any premonitions,
I started looking out for traces that you could have left behind.
I looked for the strands of your hair on the couch and the smell of your perfume on the sheets and the pillows,
I looked for half-eaten pancakes in the fridge and coffee mug stains on the table where you used to sit and write.
I looked in the wardrobe, thinking that you might have forgotten to take away with you some of your clothes,
I looked for dirt marks on the front porch that could’ve been left because of your ‘always dirty shoes’.
But I couldn’t find even a single trace of yours;
It seemed that the ground beneath my feet had disappeared and the sky had been covered with thick brown clouds
It was almost as if the world had turned upside down.
And it felt disgusting, like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot could’ve felt while solving a difficult case.
Seven and a half hours later when the sun went down and the moon rose up,
It dawned upon me to look into the most obvious place where you could have left your traces around
The place where I landed upon last;
I found you there,
Not traces of you, but you as a whole
You had left my home, maybe the city by then but,
you had not left my heart.
And it’s been seven and a half years since then,
you still have not.
-Purvang Joshi.