Saudade
i.
the starlit sky is a love poem
for the girl in a polka-dotted dress
her fingers entwined with his, he
who chants her name like a spell of love.
two glasses of cranberry juice
in a porcelain tray
wait in the sand,
as the waves tickle their toes;
and a transistor plays a retro love song
for the dreamy-eyed girl
miles away from waking up.
ii.
magic is a memory-shaped portal in your heart, taking you back to a maple forest your crayons once coloured and the smell of mum-made fruit cake and the tap of squirrels at your window sill. it is the rain on your cheeks when you walk home through a forlorn street, tipsy and flushed with the love you created out of fairytales and stardust before the mirror cracked from side to side.
iii.
look for the person you lost
in the hinterlands of your mind
that you stopped visiting
after you climbed out of the rabbit hole.
look for her, trapped in the edges
of old mirrors and songs you sang
beneath the stars, in the flowers
pressed between the pages of a dusty book
you loved once but love no more.
find her, in a polka-dotted dress
waiting
like a favourite memory,
a poem with a different meaning
each time you read
and tell her of those lonely years
when you left her to pursue unfamiliar identities,
of the love you tossed carelessly
like summer rain in all the wrong places
and of how you found your way back
to her and to yourself,
and of all the longing within you
now that,
you’ve found the person you lost
but always were.
This poem was previously published in ArtRefurbish.
Image source
Archita Mittra: writer, editor & artist 
