After a long promise, Mithila knocked on the door.
Each hour turned into many years,
And the clock, with its cruel hands, kept turning
Until the waiting had worn the world down.
You are too late, Mithila, too late.

The maple leaves of autumn have fallen countless times,
The golden willow vines entwined my feet many years
Each one a whispered goodbye to another season.
Their roots are now too tangled to remember
where I began,
Yet you have not come.
I have remained sleepless for many new moons,
Chasing shadows in the darkness for light.

Mithila, you have not come.
The rivers bent into myriad canals,
Seeking new paths,
The kites soared beyond the clouds,
Severing the thread of time,
And
The sun sank into the sea, dying and being reborn
Thousand times,
Each death wanted for its last.
The full moon was destroyed to sacrifice darkness,
I’ve watched it fade again and again,
And still…

How much blood passed through the vein,
It’s in the struggle with memory.
Each day heavier than the last,
Finally, you have come,
But my hair has become grey,
Youth has declined,
And age has hollowed this body.
I am no longer the one you left behind.

You have come too late, Mithila.