Want to do make fire

I had had a hard day,
rushing from room to room,
talking, listening, being a part of discussions,
never feeling any communication,
doing work I didn't understand,
where every task felt like a cigarette
smoked not for pleasure, but
only for another hour's sustenance,
the result only smoke and ashes.

Came back home burnt,
only smoke in my breath,
and soot in my blood,
every organ aching.

Had heard that talking helps,
sat down to talk with a friend,
who at my first words
looked elsewhere,
got up and walked away,
found a matchbox
that I should have
but hadn't kept out of his reach.

He picked it up,
then made me pick him up,
and said "Want to do make fire"
I was about to refuse,
when he pointed his little finger
toward the door to the terrace.
We went out, I put him down,
lit the matchsticks one by one,
and threw them in a mug of water.
He watched every single one of them
his eyes lighting up brighter than each.
And then walked away again.

Opened a tap and wet his feet
on that cold Bangalore night,
making me pick him again, despite my exhaustion,
take him in a warm room,
change his socks, and shoes,
and before I was done,
he ran away again.

This time to an electric wire,
and before I could haul myself,
entangled himself, and pulled it off.
I put him out of it,
as he watched patiently,
before being off again.

Picked up a crayon off the ground,
and made me run just in time
to prevent him from making a snack of it.

In the next hour,
he broke two strings of the guitar,
a CD, tore a newspaper like I never knew
they could be torn, and scattered half of his dinner
evenly across the house.

When it was time for bed,
it wasn't time for bed yet,
and in that another hour,
he made me imagine and tell him about,
what the cats and dogs had been up to today,
how the moon had rolled down to the earth,
and how a cheetah had gatecrashed his birthday party that day.
How he had avoided mosquitoes, ants and spiders,
and seen the alphabet raining that day.

I sang in a headache of talking trains,
playful buses, mischievous clowns,
and footloose flamingos,
ten times each
before, safe in these fantasies,
he went to sleep.

I lay him on the bed, and sitting beside him,
as my own thought returned to me,
realized I couldn't think of my problems of the day now
if I tried to recall them.
People try to help by talking,
when they can't do better.
My little friend showed me instead,
what all there is,
when I had spent my day
trying to fit myself and live
in merely the real world,
out of all possible ones.