Dear Dhaka

Thursday, January 10, 2019
Two more days in a place I know too well, and a place that knows me, before I leave you again. You remind me of a time in my life when my days were happy and hopeful, when I did not get a sinking feeling each morning the second my eyes opened. Peaceful nostalgia does wonders to one's body and mind. I have been sleeping better, dreaming better since I have arrived. You take me to a good place, a place that allows me to live in denial, and not the actual reality I no longer carry the strength to live. Right now, here, on this bed beside my friend, with subtle noise from outside, I can live bits of my fond past, little is enough when you have nothing. You are where my father is buried. You are where I can speak to him for hours with something physical before me, something I can see, something I can touch, unlike everything imaginary in my life, like love, care, peace, comfort, security. I have been going out everyday, walking the streets. I don't do that in Melbourne. There's something sweet, honest and childlike in my peaceful nostalgia that gives me strength. Whereas my innocence has been chewed up and spat in my reality. Melbourne is what's real, the chewed up version of me. Dhaka is what used to be. I'm scared, so scared. I want to hold on to this tiny peace and never let it go. Little is enough when you have nothing.
10/1/2019. Dhaka, Bangladesh.