By Upasya Bhowal
"The night you stayed over at my place
For the first time ever,
The next morning you watched
Wide-eyed
As I stood at the dining table
Buttering a piece of bread
With the longest and sharpest knife on the kitchen counter
Asked me why I did that
When the butter knife was just within reach
And so was the spoon.
I remember being dumbfounded, didn’t really have an answer
Remember thinking how noone had really asked me that before
And you know how you don’t have answers to questions you haven’t been asked before?
Probably because you didn't know they exist?
So I shrugged my shoulders
Held up the piece of bread instead
Still Intact.
Not even a cut from the knife gliding over it
See?
Its whole,
I said.
That’s all that matters.
That’s all that the world will ask for.
Later that night
After you fell asleep beside me
Light snores, your arm flung over the side of the bed
I remember pondering over that question
Staring up at the ceiling
Remember thinking
Why indeed
Why pick something sharp
Only to glide it over something that I know was soft?
Something that I know was prone to hurt
Prone to tearing?
I think it was because life had thinned out my soft edges by then
Run them across the stone of reality
Over and over and over again
Until I no longer remembered how to curl
Having held myself up for so long
Ready and braced for impact
Shoulders squared
That I no longer remembered that sometimes
Sharp can only tear
Only draw blood.
Maybe that’s why I walk around with a bleeding heart.
But hold myself up for the world
See?
Still in one whole piece.
Intact.
Not a slice across my skin
Just the occasional paper cut
From bleeding into poems every now and then.
And let’s face it sweetheart
nobody ever died of a paper cut, did they?
So here I am
Whole
But all out of blunt edges
So here I am
Standing in front of you
Handing you the sharpest knife on my kitchen counter
Hoping you’ll remember to glide it across
Slowly
But never run it through
Like so many others have done before you
Tiptoed out my door
Footsteps vanishing from my floor
Leaving behind the kind of quiet
That drowns you from the inside.
The first time that happened
Was also the first time I picked up a pen
And then?
Then I wrote
Words tumbling out late into the night
It was the first time ever that I wrote about love
But the first time I wrote about love
I didn’t really write about love
Wrote about leaving instead
Every word forcing its way out
Wishing it were anywhere but here
In the middle of a love poem about leaving
Beginning as something tender,
Gentle, even,
And then growing ugly by the time it finally makes its way out
Like a stutter
The word crawling its way up your throat
But changing its mind the second before you spill it to the world
L…Lo…Lov…
Leaving.
Each syllable a painful reminder of what is to come.
Leaving.
A package at my door front
With everything I had ever given
Everything I never asked back for
Everything
Returned to me
Leaving.
The wardrobe for one
That was always spilling over with clothes for two.
That wardrobe
In neat stacks now,
Nothing dropping to the floor
When you open it anymore
Leaving.
Two sets of keys to the front door
Both with me.
Leaving.
Feeling like I am wading into the ocean
While you stand at the shore
Not even waving goodbye
Leaving.
Sunday mornings
Spent in silence
The house echoing
With things we’ve forgotten to say
Leaving.
Waking up alone the next day.
Left.
No more Sundays in silence
Plenty more Sundays in silence.
Left.
So far into the ocean
That when I look back
I don’t even see you anymore
Left.
Two sets of keys to the front door.
Both with me.
Left.
That wardrobe for one.
Just a wardrobe for one now.
Left.
Everything I had ever given
Everything I never asked back for
In a corner of my room
Left.
Picking up a pen.
Bracing myself for love poems
Left.
Breakfast for one.
Left.
My kitchen out of butter knives.
Left.
Whole
Intact.
Not a slice on my skin
But walking around with paper cuts.
Knowing I won’t die of them today
Knowing I won’t die of them ever.
Knowing I die of them
A little bit everyday."