Poem : The Abandoned Building

There is a house at the end of the road,
I recognise it from the dusty photographs,
that my store room bears the burden of.
The house is full of rusty metals in dusty sheets,
and devoid of the presence of sentient heartbeats.

The main gate still carries a burden too heavy,
a board that says 'ABANDONED BUILDING'.
And the creaking floorboards ensure the perpetuity,
of the solitude that is brought forth as an ambiguity.

The tree that is at the centre of the backyard,
has been leafless for over a decade.
Birds around it have stopped the chirping spree,
and squirrels have finished the nuts on the tree.

A swing hangs from the withered branch,
with one end of the rope torn in the middle,
children don't sneak-in to have a who-goes-highest,
and the adults don't scold them anymore.

I often wonder if this house had abandonment issues,
and that's why it became something so different,
that I cannot even recognise my childhood home.
Because that is what abandonment does to people.

I want to go there, and bring it back to who it was,
but I don't know what is the worse thing,
the fact that I abandoned it when it's walls needed me,
or the assumption that I can fix it completely,
without changing the essence that made it, a home.

                                                       -Sushant Kumar Das