To an Indian parent,

My heart kinda aches
From not being able to tell
I love you
I care for you
I miss you

Hands that clutch too hard
Make you want to escape them soon
I guess that’s how it works
Between me and you

Yet your wrinkled hands are calling me
So are your dreams
Of being cared for in old age
By your progeny

I can feel the years that weighed you down
The wrinkles on your cheek
Dear mother, dear father
My lungs scream out from not calling to you in need

This forced adulthood
This urge to being the eldest daughter
The responsible one
The one my lil one can look upto
Is weighing on me

When all I want
Is go back to the corner of our home
Hide under your hawk eye
To all thats evil towards me.

Yet I cannot do this
Or that
Or anything which makes me look weak
Or undeserving
Of this freedom I have been coveting for far too long

To not being the frog in the wall
To not being the caged Bird that sings
To write my fate
With my own free will

So I can just pray and pray
For you both
And hope your love to stay
Till I conquer the world
Achieve all that I had wished for
Get my fill of it
And be able to come back to you
And not regret it a single bit

For I love you
I care for you
And I miss you
Even if those are the hardest three words to tell your Indian parents when you feel.