Dear Dhaka,
I think of you as if you’re a forgotten religion. But it’s made you more sacred in my eyes. I revere your piss-stained, graffitied walls. I worship the writhing masses of thick black wires that hang from electricity poles in every one of your street. I pray to the roaring hymns of buses and lorries that spew acrid black smoke.
Dilijan smokes like you do. Sometimes, when I’m out, treading loose gravel, I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. It smells like you. Like blackened lungs and grey ash spraying in the wind. I pretend that in front of my closed eyes are people with skin the colour of rich earth. I pretend for a moment, that if I opened them, right here, right now, I’d see you in all your triumphant glory.
I’m not used to the cold. I’m used to your heat beating upon my back. I’m used to sweat dripping down the nape of my neck and down my spine. I don’t think I like this. I don’t like the way the cold air stabs through my throat like a sharp knife. Fog comes out of my mouth in puffs when I talk at night, when it’s cold. I remember cursing your name when that didn’t happen during the winters I spent with you. I remember praying for snow like I pray for your warmth now. The rain doesn’t smell right either. It doesn’t smell like earth. It doesn’t sound like a thousand trees heaving a relieved sigh. It’s wrong. It’s not home. It’s not you.
Stay well, my love. Don’t ever quieten. Don’t ever become pretty. Wait for me to come back to you.
Until I can taste the rancid garbage in your air again,
M
