Bookshop by Anita Joy Balraj

It's a beautiful little book shop, but you'll not know it if you don't
Mummy first took me there when I was four
She took me there all the time and let me buy any book I wanted
We loved going there, Mummy and my favorite weekend getaway
Rainy Saturday afternoons and quiet Friday evenings, in the coziness of the bookshop and the calming smell of new books
I grew up and moved across the globe, but Mummy and I still talked about the bookshop
We made plans to visit it when I came back home
But it is closed, it's an office building now
No signs of what it used to be except all my books at home
I feel empty, I am only left with memories of the bookshop and Mummy
One, taken down to the ground, and the other buried under.

Anita Joy Balraj is a business analyst by profession and a poet by choice. She wrote her first poem when she was six and hasn't stopped writing since then. She has work published in Black Poppy Review and The Chamber Magazine.