we strike a match
against the edge of yesterday,
and suddenly the dark forgets its name.

this is the world remembering
how to see itself.

lamps lean forward
like curious children,
asking the night if it still believes
in forgiveness.

somewhere, a flame whispers
into another flame,
and the air blushes,
ashamed of its own silence.

quietly, we light
what was always burning,
beneath the soot of our forgetting.

dear diwali,
or whatever you call
that small impossible moment
when light chooses you back.

a note: i’m still not sure if this is a poem or few overconfident sentences pretending to be one. i wrote it on a walk, with rahman’s 99 songs looping in lossless audio. 99 songs is such an underrated album, every track has that unmistakable rahman style of slow poison. this thought came as i was listening to sofia number from that album. so thank you rahman, madhan karky, srikanth hariharan, and whoever invented headphones. diwali nostalgia kept colliding with the song’s longing for hope. i didn’t really write this, it sort of arrived. a small self-reminder that hope and kindness and clarity don’t appear fully formed, they keep practicing their return. part nostalgia, part rhythm, and a little bit of light finding its way back.