Saanjh (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781645606352)

AFTER YOU LEFT

I come back to cold bed sheets, perfectly ironed and without a single wrinkle. My feet take me to the coffee table. I work and read until I pass out. Sleep doesn't knock on my door these days. The roses that you gave me are still fresh enough in the vase and so are my wounds. In this life of what has felt like a thousand years, I realize, I have died a trillion times and lived only when you carried my corpse in your arms. I see shadows in the rainbow and the jasmine bleeds. Oreo still demands the cookies you make for her and my kitchen is weirdly neat as we no more make weird dishes out of potatos. I kiss your photo umpteen times a day and look for a hand to hold as the lost child searches for a little finger in the crowd of predators. An abandoned child is never afraid of loss, they are only afraid of the mirage that love creates.