The neighbour with their offerings
from a tiny vegetable patch
joyful harvest, of food and love.
Two small, four-legged visitors
unexpected, happily sneaking
through the narrow metal grate out front,
stealthy as time creeping up on you
quiet as the morning that
carries stories of grief and stasis.
Ten times that I yelled at someone
but the one time I did not
and instead chose to belatedly listen
to their quiet hurting heart, I learned
what I did not know because
I had already decided I did not want to.
The child who recognized me
on the street before I did them
the one who decided long after I had
forgotten the good in the world, the tender
no-exchanges, no-returns love
that lives between the mundane
everyday, between days that I like
to sometimes quietly cry
at my own recurring inability to see it.
Anukriti Yadav (she/her) is an undergraduate STEM student from Delhi NCR. She enjoys poetry, book-hoarding, all kinds of tea, Grant Snider comics, taking pictures of commonplace objects, and speed-walking while listening to hyphenated genres of rock and acoustic music. She ardently believes in mint chocolate and mental health rights, and can be reached on both Instagram and Twitter. Her work is forthcoming in Ice Lolly Review and Pop The Cultural Pill.
