Last week, we had an assignment to write a poem for a poetry class I'm taking this semester and I had nothing till the midnight before submission. I knew the whole class was going to read it. It was going to be their first impression of me. I started falling asleep and then for some reason, these words came to me. I got back from Bombay only a month ago and that's probably why.

This one's for home, for family, for friends and for the comfort they all provide me.

"As you enter my house back at home,

The wind chimes.

The air hits you in the face, quite hard I’d say,

Almost as if scolding you for being away,

The faces light up,

In the most beautiful way,

Like stars arrived in the midst of day,

“Huh”, goes my now unusually pampered heart,

Happy of course at all the attention being cast its way,

Where were you? Scream the walls and the heavy breaths of my four legged creatures,

There is a drop of relief in my mother’s eyes,

And a strange calmness in my dad’s,

A sense of familiarity soothes,

Creating an envelope the letters of my name had been missing,

Grandma stands there with a wide smile, stuck on her face like a jammed car,

I’d call it creepy had I not known her,

Grandpa waits for his turn patiently,

Grandma two pulls me into an embrace that my body had been yearning,

Grandpa two has been long gone.

Some things look the same, some unrecognizable,

Furniture rearranged, the serenity is sizable.

The smell of sizzling mustard makes me smile,

Although it soon gets overpowered by the smell of black coffee that my father enjoys,

There is a sense of acquaintance but you’re also lost,

Wondering,

How long had I been gone?

What kind of wings did time have?

And in that wonderment,

It begins to fly at jet speed,

Changing the drop of relief to water as salty as the Arabian sea,

The embrace starts reflecting patches of longing again,

The smile begins to fade,

The car gets unjammed.

As you leave my house back at home,

The wind chimes.

The air hits you in the face, quite hard I’d say,