The Royal Tank

Silver shoes can take you anywhere
Maybe even home
But silver is just a shiny grey
And the quest for emerald can leave you jaded

The yellow brick road
Only leads up to a garden path
And the golden shower tree’s flowers
Swirl up to be ruins of a safe haven

In a stale pinafore
I have never felt more stripped
In a secure mock-neck
I have never felt more strangled

The wicked witch came with her weight
But remained the keeper of the royal tank
The cowardly lion came with all his might
But became a seeker of the storm’s eye

Oh Dorothy! Didn’t anyone tell you?
You can waddle all your way home
And harbour all the wishful thinking
But, these moccasins will wear out one day.

~Poem 35

Author’s Note: The imagery is based on Wizard of Oz, a famous classic written by L. Frank Baum. “Royal Tank” denotes a neighbourhood in Delhi, i.e. Hauz Khas, a place that felt like home to me at one point. As opposed to the visual adaptation, the shoes that Dorothy wears in the books are actually silver. The color of the shoes was changed to red to take advantage of the new Technicolor film process used in big-budget Hollywood films of the era.