snickersandsneakers

I was upset, so I killed an ant

Now the gods are upset with me, They may kill me.

The ant did nothing to deserve my crushed juicebox, But I did nothing to deserve this pain.

The ant still lies below the juicebox

With it's fluids flowing, and separated abdomen.

I can't stand the sight, I am obsessed with it.

I am the ant. And I am Myself.

my fluids are flowing between my separated abdomen and anther because of the crushed juiceboxes i throw in anger at myself.

I am the ant. And I am Myself.

I am microscopic and helpless.

I am a blood thirsty mental Giant.

Sat on the six-decade-old Oak Sofa

With a six-decade-old man, I call my father.

Think like a child, with a restless mind.

I hear him choke, and then I howl.

Pain worth yards, and hurt like spilled vermillion.

Think like a widow, drawn to fire.

The Eyes I have always seen nerve in, are now nervous.

The smile I have always seen steady, is now flickering.

The Oak creaks, and silently grieves the grin we had when I was a child. 

You go left, I go left

I go right, You go right

The circus goes on, until the Ringmaster dies.

I weep and the Joker makeup comes off.

Dirty pictures on the walls, A perfect line of thought. We broke up 20 days ago, The baby we’ll abort.

A line of women at your door, And 27 men. Bo Burnham’s balloon animals, That he's never had in red.

Crusty dry blue eyeshadow, Eggshells on the floors. Calling dad at 3am, He’s worried sick of course.

Worrying I’ll end up like Mom, A picture-perfect wife. 25 years on the plate With Lunacy on the side.

Roaches, praying mantises Eye drops after smoke. The still believe in Santa, But then never so in god.

I went to the post office, with my creme envelope addressed in cursive licked shut.

I asked the old man for a stamp of 2 aanas.

“To Where, beta?” he asked.

“Heaven.” I said.

“Heaven Garden Society?”

“No. Just heaven.”

He chuckled like I had made a sexist “Indian woman belongs in the kitchen” joke.

He suddenly didn't find it funny anymore when he saw the cursive letters on the delicate paper, which laughed at him instead. “Heaven.”

The paper chuckled like I made an “Indian men will never learn.” joke.

He looked back at his peers who were also perplexed by this. They couldn't decide whether to make another sexist joke about Indian women and their IQs or quit their jobs, they were simply not paid enough for this.

He finally gathered the cursive letters of his voice, “But beta, how do you know this person isn't in hell?”

The office broke out in the typical middle aged men tired of their life type of laughter, which lightened the mood, but you could still whiff the strain in the air. 

I let out a breath of irritation. And took a breath of courage.

“I'm writing to my father. My father who always had a story to tell, and jokes that only he would laugh at. Who loved stringing his words into colourful garlands, his sentences. Who believed everyone who loves, is to be loved, and everyone who doesn’t, is to be loved too. Who would often fall asleep on the creaking mahogany living room sofa with a book on his chest, and let the words against his heart speak to him. Who would steal the sweets tucked away safely in the cupboard next to the puja. And laugh nervously when caught. 

They have a special place for people who stole sweets in heaven, Uncle.”

You could hear the most manliest man in the room, with a moustache that grew long and thick, curved at the ends, tall and broad shouldered, who usually had a stern look on his face, weeping like a little girl. This time I laughed at my own sexist joke.

I walked out of the office, hopped on my cycle, and stopped to look back at the room full of men, who were still trying to wrap their heads around the cloud of grief I left, but only they were smiling.

Smiling in pain, for me. Smiling in nostalgia for their own fathers that they once lost. Smiling in love, for me. For leaving them grateful, after years of feelings of nothingness. 

While the rest of my family eats on steel plates, I throw a toddler tantrum to eat on the glassware reserved for guests.

The plates and bowls that look a delicate swan white in the day, and a dainty cloud white at night, but the lavender coloured flower vines circumlining the glass bloom the same, all times of the day, all days of the year.

The plates and bowls that were carefully handcrafted by an old man in a far away land, who does not have the privilege to eat on them, watch his meals steam on them. Just make one after another, to be sold nationwide, only to be kept in cabinets, collecting dust instead of grains. 

Perhaps it's the way they clink at a perfect F#, or the refined symmetry, or the way I pretend I'm rich when I eat my Rajma Chawal on them, or maybe even just the way it annoys my mother that I refuse to eat on anything else that makes it such an experience.

As I sit here on my dinner table with my glassware in front of me, waiting for the Chawal to cool off, and the slightly annoying periodic bell of mother’s warnings to handle her precious plates with care rings in my ear, I think of all the glassware I will own and cherish when I’m older, and the comfort that it would bring after a long day at work, with a home-cooked meal I make with love, and I say grace for that far away old man.

No voice in my head prowled to taunt me about the hair on my body.

Tuesday is a funny day for my weight to seem like just a number.

Because it’s never a Friday night, when I'm in my sexiest dress, at a club, with my straight haired, fair skinned and sharp featured girlfriends.

Most of them had bodies that screamed “you’re fat!” at me. While their mouths always said I’m beautiful.

I looked at myself in the mirror today, and I for once didn’t want to immediately look away.

I smiled.

But it fell off my face when I thought about the insecurity sneakily crawling up my back to grope me again. The insecurities whose dark tentacles don't leave a square inch of skin, leaving a stain behind,

that would take years to come off.

I’m on my 5th razor blade this month. And on my 5th Cinnamon bun today, it's only 2pm. That's 1115 calories, usually just 5 makes me want to never eat again. But I want to feed the temple today. Usually it's a termite infested shed. Today, it’s a temple.

Maybe a temple with a God I will never pray to, But every temple deserves its cinnamon buns, be it on a random Tuesday.

~From the perspective of an acquaintance I haven't seen in 4 years, but I remember the way her dark curls fell to her shoulders, and the way the dark words fell out her mouth.~

To the girl I met at Aarti ma’ams class,

And I don't believe in god.

6 minutes ago, I fought back tears, because my mother couldn't.

The tears, that could once fall with liberty.

5 minutes ago, My father swallowed the words that he didn't dare say out loud.

No one grieved the sentences that never existed.

4 minutes ago, I googled how to stop my hands from shaking.

Google only told me I had the Bubonic Plague and that I was going to die.

3 minutes ago, The clock couldn't be ticking any slower.

How I will always have a love-hate relationship with time.

2 minutes ago, the world was still.

Unknowing of the disasters that took our three-bedroom flat by storm.

1 minute ago, I anticipated my world tumbling again.

"It would get easier now, right?" The god I didn't believe in laughed.

Now.

Like the storm was never there. 7 minutes, 5 stages of grief. It all ends in acceptance.

with no windows and a door that only responds to me finally admitting i am not okay.