Do you still drink tea?

By Trishit Ghosh 

A complete darkness under the very moon leads me to trace back my steps,

I visited his shelves of books for an answer,
but they only spoke about how he liked to mix his tea with lemon
and how he has someone to do it for him now.

Funnily enough, the first time I met him was when he explained to me the politics behind mixing lemon with tea,
and that was the first time I'd seen the tea leaves in all their glory and entirety.

A friend for an hour, it seemed. What could he do?

The clock ticked by, and so did our conversations over tea,
over dinners, and over those shelves of books he took pride in,
over bars of songs on the tables we would dance over.

So why were there songs penned by him for someone else?
Why did you return to the house next to ours?

The tea I made could have been sweeter,
and the books were arranged in a fashion unknown to me.

I watered the lilies by your window, not in haste but for the guest you would get.

Walking by the subway, I left my bag with letters addressed to you,
not in haste but for the youth to read and learn.