An intense, evocative prose poem by Ritamvara, exclusively for Different Truths.

It was when we didn’t know the names of us, back then my breath was trafficked in the womb of some women. I was a parasite living on her nutrients and counted the blood vessels on the walls of the womb and my love, my destiny was not written then….

Since then my unformed shape quivered inside of you, you in me made me swoon in between the gulps of lemon sherbet. Each glance of us without us ignited to the summits of the untouched white Kanchenjungha. Had we not seen it already, my love? Had we not prayed for Nirvana holding each other’s hands, long dreams and white scratchy prison bars!

Back here you ruffle my hair with your sighs, so far away the waves rise. Is not it a tempest that rocks the fisherman’s boat? Let the boat capsize, Sigh! The abundance of the night gives away to the palms along the shore as muted witness without a tongue to roll.

You, my love, how you swim with the taste of my salty tears. You manage to find a way through, each time I create whirlpools of shelter for you to suckle my breasts on a cold homeless night, won’t you rest a while? Won’t you let spoonful of your saliva drip…Ah! It is that coldness of murder. Each time you escape but I have the marks against my white breasts. Marks sweetly tucked between the folds of the cotton drape for you to murder me each time with the second hand of watch ticking through…

I am the Woman whom you met on the flames, I am the Woman whom you denied, loved and gave away in the dimness of night bulbs. I am the mirror who pleases and when you break open, it gets fragmented into many such pieces of you replicating yourself.

My love, I have still to see the sweetest reflection of yours. I promise to be back here on this world to buy the evening paper and meet you on a stroll. As a stranger, our eyes shall meet and I will swallow your heart for another hour, day weeks, for I promise to learn the trick of French kisses and cuddles and hugs and all that I never could jazz up. I promise to make you pine for me as the dirt in the dark corners of the well-lit room.

©Ritamvara Bhattacharya

Photo from the Internet