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B Sai Sushma Poem
The door to our bathroom is tiny,
Made of a faded red plastic nearly two decades ago,
One of its hinges has already been eaten away,
By time & rust that blossomed at its end,
Its latch has never worked,
The builder had his drawing wrong and we never managed to fix it,
And the door never really closed all the way.
Sometimes we used buckets,
Half-filled, not empty,
To hold the door in place.
Sometimes we placed the stool there,
It was an old iron stool,
Starting to bleed in its own rust,
And often we tripped.
Sometimes we closed all the doors,
In the rest of the house,
So that we wouldn't tempt the wind,
To push the door across.
So my mother brought out a small granite slab,
The size of her palm,
The colour of our kitchen floor and placed it in the corner.
It was heavy enough to close the door,
And small enough that we didn't trip over it,
And it was easy to move,
With just our feet,
And I wonder how much,
That little stone slab has seen for,
Much of our loneliness is cradled in that bathroom.
My father with his fury,
At how his daughter didn't live up to his dreams,
At how is authority is questioned every half second,
Wondering why we don't see his great sacrifices,
And get hung on to petty details.
My mother with her fear,
At the deep doubts, she has over her daughter's sexuality,
At the disappointment, she has in what she knows to be a dreary future.
Confused why her children just won't do what they're told,
Instead of trying to be their own persons.
My sister with her confusion,
At the sudden attention being poured on her,
Caught with a sudden pressure weighing on her back,
Unable to ask for reprieve and always, wondering,
Which expectation is real and which one a trap?
The worst sight,
The slab has to see,
Is possibly,
It's perception of me,
And I have to wonder,
If my family,
My seemingly loving,
Desperately perfect family,
Know each other any more than the slab,
Knows us.
Copyright © B Sai Sushma | Year Posted 2021
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