Mosaic

Shaleen Bansal, ISC Batch of 2022

no part of me is truly mine.

I was never whole to begin with,

but each person I loved,

claimed a piece of my being.

some too big,

some barely enough.

some left me yearning,

begging them to take a bigger portion,

others took so much,

left me nothing but a drop in my own ocean.

its easy to lose myself,

in the crowd of people in my heart,

its easier to admit, that somedays I like being lost,

I like the fact that they all left a mark.

so now,

I can tell you the song,

my best friend from 6th grade knew by heart,

I can dictate the quote

from the favourite book of a boy from my past,

but I can't make them come back,

and I can't make them love me,

because they took the piece they wanted,

renamed a part of my heart as their city.

now I can't walk through it,

without reminiscing about the days they spent with me,

this one-sided yearning,

is what accompanies that half-shut box of memories.

but that's the cost of being loved,

and the price I pay for loving,

so I fill gold in all my cracks,

and make it sound all romantic.

"oh, I’m a mosaic of the people I loved",

every fractured fragment of my being

is a memoir of those whose souls i've brushed,

but to what point can I make it look beautiful,

when no part of me is my own,

every scratch on my heart is proof I’ve burned for love,

but how does it matter

when in the end

I’m here

all alone.

and I know that sounds lovely,

I know, because I made it sound that way,

if I didn't,

I’d have to face the fact,

that everything I am is borrowed, and nothing is self-made.

~Shaleen