Cut

Standing before the mirror, I saw it.

My silhouette which was holding me for years has became a fallen heap.

The fury, the rage all has been taken over by the sadness prevailed.

It started from my smile slowly making it's way down; blocking my breaths, emotions and whatever he found open in my dead body.

I tucked my hair behind and stood there, 'is the war over'? I asked to no one in particular. 

Lily was cooing in the next room safely tucked in my mother's arm but where's her mother I asked.

She is standing here inspecting her sadness and thinking about the measures to reduce it.

Then I saw it, it was shining like a sword, like a young woman with her bosom full. 

There was it, my saviour shining and shining trying to cut down the darkness.

I picked it up slowly felt it on my hands, it wasn't soft but rough. 

'That's the bitter truth' ,said the mad woman who hasn't left my company. 

With blood in her eyes she was laughing haughtily, her skin like a charcoal was glowing.

'Where's my Nova?' she asked again. 

Have you even been in a state in which you just want to sleep and sleep not thinking about your partner gone in South, about Lily whom you got a year back or the charcoal skin woman?

I was feeling it, feeling it through my ears and skin.

I took the refugee of that rough shiny thing, I slowly brought it down and contacted it with my skin.

Slowly warm brown water poured from my skin, 'amazon, I finally reached home' rejoiced the charcoal skin. 

I finally did something, not thinking about anyone else, the control which I always craved was finally given to me by this rough, shiny thing.

I cried and laughed, danced like a savage, the woman had gone, Lily's voice had gone.

Only a messenger was shouting, your husband has gone, killed in the darkness.

I continued dancing, sang all my heart and finally collapsed and was engulfed in darkness with the shiny little thing clutched in my bloddy hand.

-Shruti Upadhyay