By Radhika R
I am a run down two-storeyed miracle
Sheltering the detritus of teenage heartbreak
My front door hangs limply to its hinges
At an oddly crooked angle
Battered by the storm of our last fight
We had hurled spite around like sidewalk rubble
And now the window pane nurses a wound
The size of your fist, a sliver of cracked glass
Scavenging the wooden frame
The juvenile floorboards moan
Under the weight of your desertion
Like a newly impregnated mother heaving
A sigh of distress at the first mention of a father
The pipes hum a sad guttural refrain
As the wind of an ending taps
On the cold metallic fixture
Tip-toeing around in broken stilettos
A frayed tie-dyed carpet flaunts
Bright fuschia pink blooming uncannily
Like the ghost of a bruise
Sailing across the length of my spine
The ceiling throbs and pulsates like
A quivering mass of flesh with
Arms bound in prayer before collapsing
Onto its knees beseeching your love
To salvage the house from dereliction
But instead you undress the corpse down
To the bone, ripping the house limb from limb
Wondering why a man like you should rebuild
When you have already perfected the art of rehabilitation