somewhere, a nest is lined with what i lost
there’s a small hole the size of a nickel
in my heart. perhaps, smaller. perhaps, the size
of the space where a button used to be.
it isn’t much; just enough for a life to fit in
and breathe barely. instead, light slips in
sideways and stays huddled.
yesterday, a bird pulled a thread from the porch chair.
and took it somewhere I couldn’t follow.
i tell myself it will become a warm nest, as small
as a moth’s quiet hunger. but who can say?
my neighbour’s cat sits on the windowsill, facing
our house, and tilts its head at me.
the pink of the sky falls on the white walls,
trees lean in toward each other to hush,
passersby rush to chowringhee road, the many
gaps in the crowd filled with exhaled apologies
and decayed sighs. they’re the size of a thumbprint
on a window, as small as a quiet leaving.
i press my own hand against the glass
but the fit is never quite right.
my mother once taught me how to breathe through ache.
the ache of things that were. the ache of silence.
the ache of a half-healed ache. everything.
in through the nose, out through the mouth.
i try it again today, as i touch the thumbprint
the size of an ache left on the glass. i breathe out
whatever i can bear to lose.
still, the ache stays.
still, i know the hole stays open,
small as a wish, wide enough for the weather.
the two ends of a broken spine
tonight i have nothing to offer you but this
light-infested poem. my mother is feeding me
my favorite pulao as i breathe in the mix
of spices and tenderness. i think of the bud of the
yellow hibiscus i saw opening like a hungry mouth
waiting for the sun to feed it. so i took the pot to the
far end of the porch so it can feed off the tired sun.
i pack my bag as my grandmother hands me tenderly
folded melancholy in the shape of a seahorse,
much like the brown excrement on the bottom of
the teacup. she kisses my forehead and wishes
me a safe journey. i realize it’s like the two ends of
a broken spine: love and escape.
to be loved is to be caged, to run is to be alone.
so i linger the doorway, spine half-cracked, half-healed,
wondering if breaking all the way would set me free.
a woman cries on the other side of the road
under the streetlight. her shadow pools at her
feet, her hands gripping her bruise. the creak of
our frontgate probably slices her open when she
looks up and finds my mother hugging me.
somewhere between, we have folded ourselves
small, pressed our names into the wood grain, and
wait by the window forever like my father is.
the thick mortar of love sticks to my hand when i
accidentally touched the wall while walking out,
absentminded.
outside, the air smells of lemon and burnt sugar.
somewhere, a child drags a broken kite through the street.
somewhere, a door swings open but does not shut.
a sky named after us
Oftentimes, I imagine how our last conversation
will go: sun-bleached, caffeine-drenched, over
the after-sunset sky. It’s not the last day in the
world, but last as in things that don’t last. We’ll
be sitting by the window, sipping on steaming chai,
contemplating over the phrases we never chewed
enough before swallowing. ‘I love you’s will vanish
into the paper-thin air, cities change colors before our
eyes while you quote Glück and name us after the drooping sky.
In this brief time, we’re brief bodies searching
“life” in the brevity of a dying sea. You want to
own it, claim it, call it “yours.” My fingers rake through
the dried blood of my split lips, our twenties
that died over the liquid moon. My mother says,
whether you want to let yourself live vicariously or
violently, is up to you. No waxing poetic can make it feel better.
Depraved is what we are in the fall of time and
dream of massacres, the children of red agonies.
When does nostalgia grab your face and force you to look at it?
This time, you don’t answer or look away. Silence stretches
along the gaps in our breaths. We’ve quit loving
with so much struggle. Or easy. Perhaps there’s nothing
to love, or no window to open again. Just a few
keepsakes here and there, between our fingers.
You ask me about my future, and all I want to say
is there’s none left. Instead, I shrug. You don’t press.
There’s nothing more to talk about, no regrets
to get yelled for, no promises to hold onto.
Clocks tick, the last bits of phrases shimmer
down, trees sleep as the rain proclaims them.
This is it, I stand up and walk over to you.
I squeeze your hand three times and
turn around, taking the circular staircase.
There’s no point in running around us or
keeping you in my heart when there’s none.
– love is a room with no windows.
a psalm of a shadow
of everything i’ve wished for so far,
i now wish to grow wings of rage.
the gaps between my breath where apologies
are drenched in crimson, the death without
dying—i wish to learn all of it.
my hands are stained in poisonous words,
skin split open by the knives of hope,
my home falling apart by the load of dreams.
i watch people harbour in the pool of heartache.
spoonfuls of tenderness dissolve into the mashed
heart, nourishing the seeds of rage. i paint psalms
of peeled oranges on the contours of their shadows.
ruin and rage feel so warm on their lips as they learn
silence and carve elegies in the back of their teeth.
on my way home, i find beggers crouched under the
shed of the station, stitching a half-formed world
immune from the stains of heavy bootprints.
a woman folds hunger into her child’s lap and presses
a prayer into his palm. a man spits out his father’s wars
and lets them pool at his soot-dusted feet.
they carve revolution with their bones;
rage doesn’t bite back with its red teeth or ask for more space.
i clench my hands—what use is fury with nowhere to land?
a bird cries somewhere from the neem tree.
i wish for my rust-bitten wings to split the sky into
two halves. their tendons and sinews carving new
names into the hush of men who’s built a world
that grinds its teeth at the throat of silence.
freedom is the occasional splatter of yellow on my
shirt when i peel the sun from the sky and hold it hostage—
if only to make the world burn the way we have burned.
About the Author
Sreeja Naskar is a teen poet whose work delves into the darker, more introspective aspects of the human psyche. Her poetry has been featured in various literary magazines, reflecting themes of emotion, identity, and the contrasts of light and shadow. Her debut collection, Of Sunflowers and Silhouettes, was published by Bribooks.
