After Years Poem by Nosheen Irfan

It's been years since the chase
The blind following of the shadows
The wish to see the dark side of the moon
It's been flowering
Alive
Fanning the embers every time it fazed
I saw it ballooning in proportion to the city
The known merged into the unknown
Where I walked on youthful steps
There new roads emerged for only wheels
The lanes went, the groves went
The shelters went
What was left was a lingering ache
The ache of not crossing
The bridges
We kept drifting away
Slowly
Like the branches twisting away
From the center
Unseen.

Nosheen