You can take all the rusting gold I secreted away,
for those monsoons until childhood slipped away;
those petrichor smells, flooded lanes,
and paper-boats that floated away;
those long power-cuts, roof-top cots,
and sultry summer nights chatted away;
those last-row wooden-benches we fought for,
and the whispers when teachers looked away;
those childhood vows of togetherness, JJ,
and the smiling faces that have faded away.