Nupur Chaturvedi

Shards of broken shells,
Like glass pierce my skin
And stay there as reminders
Of a time spent by the waves
The thrilling breakers tugging at my guts
Making me take risks I otherwise wouldn’t
Leaping to dodge a wave
Getting thrown about when I can’t
I come up sputtering, gasping and laughing
And then look at you sitting by the rocks
Keeping a watch.
You often said ‘learn to swim’
I tried, half-hearted, scared, lazy, gave up
That day, you were laughing
‘The waves are more powerful than you
You should have learnt to harness them’
But the kick of being tossed around by the waves
Kept me going, though that was not all.
You were bruised, but I knew
You knew how to harness the waves
You wouldn’t let me drown.
We collected shells later and brought them home.
Today, I crushed one.
I suppose that’s how it goes
With each passing year
They will be crushed one by one
Till there are no more.
Today they hurt, tomorrow they won’t.
And then it would be time to pick more shells.
But I still can’t swim.