The Trader of Memories
I asked a stranger I met on the street,
Will you share memories with me?
I have many and many a kind,
Of love and happiness of wisdom and bravery.
But those I shall not trade with you,
What I will is a story of great pain.
Will you trade my pain for yours?
For we have nothing to lose or gain.
Don’t we? The stranger asked with a glint in his eyes,
Fr you see, my pain is greater than yours.
Make this trade at your own risk brother,
For I have searched fruitlessly for many cures.
But at that time, only the riddance was on mind,
Thus, I bowed my head so that the pain may escape.
And so, it did and for a moment I was light,
But I gasped when the exchanged memory took shape.
It hurts all I can say, pain it was,
Although I couldn’t have said if it was greater or smaller.
I looked up at the not stranger anymore,
And found his face all lost for colour.
It still hurts, he whispers with wide eyes,
And I realise something heavy and true.
Everyone carries their own kind of pain,
That deep down inside I knew.
I see no pain is great or small,
It hurts all the same.
And no number of memories I exchange,
Will ever extinguish that flame.
Tanvi Jain is a 17-year-old living in India. She is the English Club president at her school. She spends her free time reading, writing and playing piano. Her work has been published in the Hindustan Times.