i now know how much of the lemon juice is precise for my own good and i now prefer it that way, without the extra twelve - fifteen drops that once were exciting to my teeth, i now know they only ever helped erode them.
i now have stopped scrunching up the bottom corner of my mother's kurti when my heart beats faster, when the alarm in my head alarms my entire body, when my lips ever shiver, when a stranger rests his heavy hand on my shoulder, when i want to give up, when i want to hold on, i now have stopped holding on.
i now don't fit into most of my clothes, and while i dread meeting people with this crooked set of teeth and the shrunk up clothes, i dream of a place where i'll belong, where i'll laugh and the last thing on my mind would be the spots on my left cheek.
i now have made peace with what i call my misfortune, the sheer silence of my days, the loneliness after switching off the tv, the heartbreak when the cat down the street too, gives up on me.
life has now come to this, a lukewarm, still and shallow presence, watching the quiet of the flowers past midnights, evenings of conversations with a disappearing shadow, no one to hold on to when the knees tremble, inadequate amounts of sour lemon juice
