If

If I believe in memories ingrained in my soul, I will believe in a thread that binds me to the smell of faraway lands.

If I believe in my dreams, I will accept that I have already seen a place I have not  been to yet.

If only I will let myself believe, I will hear myself sigh and accept the only time I inhaled life was when I heard a voice that I realized, after a while, was mine.

"There you are." I said to the land, the mountains, like it was a person. And home.

"Finally." The land said, like it knew I could hear.

Like it knew me.

Knew more.

Remembered more.

Of course, it remembers more.

If I believed the sneers of those who like noises and lights and politics, I will not believe in most things that matter. And bring small joys.

If I believed in their beliefs, their steady and stubborn flow of hatred, I will lose me.

If I would let it, the blur of images will separate itself from the ordinary thought, that what haunts my sleeping hours is not something I have seen in books or elsewhere.

But I disappoint the legacy of what is etched on my being. And the dreams never become vivid memories. Always running colors. Always just an inch away from my fingertips.

When for a second I believe in the tiny impossible whisper, I realize I am constantly searching. What and who? Where and when?

Why am I always open to leftover energies of long gone spirits and times? Did I hear noises in the doorways of several structures standing old and timeless? Why was it more soothing than spooky? Of course I didn't hear anything.

But of course I did.

Did I feel something in the Mughal Gardens? One wisp of sad wind. Of course, it was humidity. Then why did my smile fade from the thick sadness that washed over me, in a gush of breeze?

I am waiting for myself first, To stop denying.

If I believe in the rhythm of my heartbeat maybe I will remember clearly what the contours of a face mean to me.

Maybe I will stop searching.

Maybe.