an epistle for a lost friend by Krittika Majumder (16, India)

​my mother ran into you today
at the park by the lake where
we had our first bath in nature
six autumns ago and that was
the first time we had escaped
from our parent's houses for
though it was four in the evening

---

​november is always early as the
friendly little singing morning birds
and so orange as the waters were and
chilly as the crimson winds were
our skins felt the beauty and pain
of fading love in those cold ripples
bordered with a soft warmth
of love like the few last fragments of
auburn autumn leaves that fell on us
from the old maple tree you were
sitting by when she saw you

i ended up walking down the road
crunching the dried leaves to the
long quaint seat you loved to sit on
by the lakeside and i sat on it today
wondering if you still come here
you must this place is still charming
the leaves are scattered around freely
i wonder if they still remember us
i wonder if they lie awake each night
thinking of our boyish madness
like i do or if they ever saw us
playing that game where we
ran around in circles linking hands
laughing the way old friends do
i wonder where they think we are now
i wonder if they perhaps think we are on
that trip we wanted to go to the one
we drew pictures of sung songs of
yet here i am sitting in this lovely place
holding the book of poems you gave me

last day at school i asked you to
lend me your notebook for i had
missed the notes of some biology chapter
and while giving it back to you
i said that your handwriting was still
​the same like it was six autumns ago
and so to that you smiled your old
lemon-hued sunflower smile
and took the book from me without
saying anything though my torn heart
longed to hear your rosy voice
it had last heard six autumns ago
and so when i returned home i
looked at the red "bff" rock you had
given me on my tenth birthday and wondered if you truly remember me
or if i would ever get the answer to
what happened to us why did we
fall like amber autumn leaves like
the things i can never understand
why we have to let go of