Ammi and I
We lived in a small room
Near the river
Ammi and I
She said she wasn’t pretty
I can’t imagine of anything
More graceful than her
She would devote hours
peering at the door
writing something
in her dialect
I never met my Abba
Ammi said he lived
across the stream
She writes to him everyday
so that he’ll visit us one day
She used to tell
what’s broken
gets weaker day by day
All these years
I only saw her getting tough.
I flew to the capital
for high-school
I found you
That year it rained
like never before
And I was happier
Than ever before
Whenever it rains
it reminds me of you
You left too soon
It tastes like autumn since
Black tea
I remember
how you preferred it
Whatever you liked
I loved it too
And whatever you
fell out of love with
I stopped loving it too
I don’t love myself now
Ammi used to say
Wild creatures don’t
need to be tamed.
Science taught me
"A human body is
a group of organized tissues."
Science has an exposition
for everything
and all I understand
are metaphors
Ammi used to say
you grow into the person you love
I turned into the difficult goodbyes
the quiet mornings that follow
the anxiety right after waking up
the cities left behind
the missed buses
the delayed flights
I became the unwanted replies
the longed video calls
the songs you tune in to cry
the defeats you hate
the victory you crave
the storm before a shower
the silence after a fight
I’m the Monday blues
and the Friday night
I’m the one you look for
in an empty room
And the one
you run away from
I’m me; I’m you; I’m us
Science has an exposition
for everything
And all I understand
are metaphors.
Ammi has aged now
In her winter-white hair
She looks beautiful than ever
With her shuddering hands
She still writes
It's been years now
He doesn’t seem to come back
Neither do you.
So I choose to abandon writing
Maybe then, you will.
Bhumika.
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