Hues of My Memories

By Astha Agrawal

I was shifting my house when I found my old trunk,  

A chest once treasured, now covered in dust and sunk.  

I remember pleading for a pet, a friend of my own,  

But my parents had smiled -this was what they had shown.  

It was silver in colour, yet when I unlocked its lid,  

A hazel of nostalgia through my eyes slid.  

Books, gifts, my little thefts in line,  

But brightest of all -my paintings  shrine.  

There they were, my favourite colours,  

All dried and dead now, yet once we were lovers.  

The young me had forgotten them somehow,  

But the young in me longed to cry them alive with an apologetic bow.  

They had been my pals for the longest time,  

I had painted skies and trees, houses and seas,  

All the beauty that’s ethereal sublime

The red's not fierce anymore, the black lost its spree,  

The blue is not half as grand, the white no more an absolute remedy.  

Yet as I hold them, worn but dear,  

They whisper of days that still feel near.  

I couldn't become an artist,  

My paintings never felt the world's soft breeze,  

Yet those old, dry colours will always stay,  

For they hold the keys to the hues of my memories.  

By Astha Agrawal