Mithila in Every Season
(after the petals, before the forgetting)

We walked.
Not hand in hand,
But close enough to feel
It once might have mattered.
Spring was manic
an overdose of colour,
Trees trying too hard,
Grief in a flower crown.

She said something, bees,
pollination, cycles.
I nodded. Or smiled.
Or both.
I don’t remember.
This is where
you expect meaning.
But it’s just
noise:
“Do you still think of her?”
She didn’t ask.
Leaves.
Light.
Shoes scraping gravel
echo of what if.

Mithila wore yellow.
Of course, spring loves people like her.
I don’t trust spring.
I said:
It’s beautiful out.
I meant: I’m still cursed.

The cherry blossoms fell,
One landed on her shoulder.
I watched,
Wanted to brush it off,
Wanted to touch
without memory spilling.

But this isn’t a love poem.
It’s the aftertaste.
The long, cracked sidewalk
Back to your own door.
Somewhere, someone still loves her.
It just isn’t me, not anymore.
She laughed.
Birds scattered…
A breeze took the blossom.

We kept walking
toward nothing.
Toward spring.