Ragpickers of Memory

via Pinterest

For those of us that live in the past
The present has little to offer.
We dream tirelessly of bygone lives separated from reality
Yearn to taste and kiss and touch the DNA of history.
We roam around like wild animals
In search of domesticity.
Travelling across cities or languishing in coffee houses
We belong to your cold maps only tangentially.
We wake at the shriek of a dead story
Armour ourselves with the hindsight of centuries of failures
Steal the life out of museums
Cherish them without pity.
We are the ragpickers of memory time
Working outside the tick-tock, tick-tock of clock time
Archiving the folds and wrinkles of unchronicled chronicles
In our suitcases in want of wedding rings and springs.

©2023 Kaustabh Kashyap.