Skip to main content

A Day of Lies.

I was intended. My existence was wanted. Yet, to my creator, I still am a mistake. Born at his lips, wrapped around his fingers, he still doesn't want me as his.

He cries because of me at night when the gleam in his eyes dies down. It's a torturous plea, but I remain. In the rings he makes of me, in what he inhales, in what remains of his lungs.

She seeks me out in his room. Papers scattered, trust shattered. She can't find me anywhere, but she knows me all the same. She's seen me before, in her father.

I escaped through the windowsill of their tiny bathroom, but in the dingy light, she took me by my throat. I feel her hands still, stealing my air. She throttled her father's fear and crushed it under her chappals.

The lot of me, she drowned in a blue bucket. My mouth opened for help, but all I could take was more water. I wondered if that is what I made her feel like.

Now again, her hands smoothing out the bedsheets. I escape under my creator's pillow. I run miles in his mind, his heart racing me.

She hopes for my death. I can feel it in her gaze. He wants me alive but not known. A dirty secret.

He gave birth to me with trembling lips and desperate eyes. But he delivers me differently each time, to different faces. I meet my family at his mouth.

A rush, a momentary thrill. His pleasure comes at my existence. I felt powerful once. I grew stronger with him.

But when the night fell, my existence was a weight to him. His face lined with guilt. He chose me, yet he looks at me with fear. Unwind me then: I demanded, writhing in his body for an escape. I lingered in his thoughts, in every joy he felt. I sought to destroy what he had taken from me.

He offered me up for slaughter. Like she was the altar. His tongue thrashed around in pretty words, but I stained his teeth yellow and black at the end of that day. I will always be his, even as she stays by him in white for the promise of I, who shouldn't exist.

I am eternal, and I will promise her as they are promised to each other. Exorcise me, I will taunt her, am I not what remains of her father?

He wraps himself around me. His arms crush me deeper. He thinks of me as a habit, a secret for the shadows. I will swim in the euphoria of his mind, a parasite for the ages.

He tries to rid himself of me when she confesses her love; so deep, I threaten to leave him behind. He tries when she prays to the gods, that if I exist, to be rid of me before her eyes meets the sight. I am his truth; I am hysterical in her dreams and texts.

I was his before I was hers. She took me, swallowed me whole as he rid himself of me at the bridge of my birth. Her womb is a tight fit but I make my way, I love all people the same.

She cries as she breathes me in and takes in crumpled packets of nicotine. Her saree wrinkles against me. Her father comes to life when I do.

She's only a dutiful daughter.

Is that what she tells herself when I take her son's breath? Is that what she screams when I give it back to him? Is that what she says when I tease them with terror?

They can't take me away anymore. I live in his inhaler and their mouths. His lungs suffer for their sins.

I am his, I am hers. A stain in their flesh and blood, a stab at their souls. Will I be wielded as a knife or a sickening truth?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Permission to Dream.

I had a dream. I ran out of the airport, got into a taxi, then out again, and ran. I ran so fast, yet my left lung didn’t pinch. I ran home. The company house I had called home for so long. I told them it was technically my tharavad. They laughed, and I understood why. But I knew every inch of that place. The way my feet could map the cool tile floors, the small gaps between them, the familiar weight of the air inside, the walls that had seen me through everything. I opened the door, and everything was just as we had left it. It was a dream. It’s been a while since I dreamed. And yet, this one felt jarring—not in a way that unsettled me, but in the way that it confirmed something. I knew I was heading home. I knew the airport, I knew my destination. But as I stepped inside, I felt as though it was telling something. Telling me.  That I could call it home. That I had permission to call it home.
Post a Comment
Read more

Varuthaayi.

"വരാം," ഞാൻ പറയുമ്പോൾ, "പോകാം" എന്ന് പറയാനുള്ള ആ പേടി. My legs prickle like the seeds of a strawberry, and I feel like tearing myself apart today. I keep picking at the wound that heals every two days, only for it to break open again—blood and flesh. I feel trapped in my own skin, my body will never be what I want it to be. There are things I’m supposed to become, but time is slipping away. I applied for many things. I have sent my name into the void—eight, ten, how many more? They have to call me today. If not, I won’t be who I need to be. Tomorrow, I’ll be hopeless again. I can’t hold on to who I am, so how will time hold on to me? I eat the yellow as if it might bring some joy. One piece is thin and crispy, the bite sounds, and I feel it. The next is thick and bland—someone like me must have cut it. One is unexpectedly sweet, even though it isn’t brown like I expected. How it lies to me. I look in the mirror, I look away. Another is too salty. I eat 250 grams of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Old Vase.

We remember so we don't forget. Of the pain, of the love, of resistance, of liberation. They will forget, their children will not remember. But our flesh has the memory stored in our bones, as we are born, it is born with us. In us.  Forget about it. Forget about yesterday. Time that's to come is made by time that's gone by. The bones remember, the flesh clings to what was, and with every breath, we resist. The past slips away with parts of us, we must hold it gently without letting its arms turn into binds.  Can we live without leaving scars when we were all made of wounds? Can we make choices that feel like they reach beyond ourselves?  We remember as if by instinct because we were forced to forget once.  I hold the cracked vase gently. I wait for the glue to arrive. I can buy a new one now, but something tells me the old one will last longer. Once we trace our fingers over the scars, let them heal and fill them for all the space it has created.  Maybe then, t...
Post a Comment
Read more