Somewhere in that lane,
Lives my childhood friend.
We’ve lost touch over the years
For we’ve our own lives to tend.
As I pass her lane quietly,
Happy memories flood in,
I want to visit her
But lack of time holds me in.
I carry on to my workplace
mentally deciding to give her call.
But I get bewitched by life again
And eventually forget it all.
On a Sunday, cosy on the couch,
I skim through my friends’ list.
I stop at her phone number
But arrogance entraps me in a cyst.
She can call too,
I stonily mumble.
She has my number
AND my address, I grumble.
One fine day news reaches me,
“Your childhood friend lives no more.”
Of her chronic illness I learn
And the shock shakes my very core.
My stony heart now cries for her,
My cheeks burn with self hate.
When I could, I didn’t care
And now it’s too late.
Somewhere in that lane,
Lived my childhood friend.
Now I lay in remorseful darkness
with my ego to amend.
Now I lay in remorseful darkness
with my ego to amend.
