Your every word feels like a needle piercing a million holes in my heart,
When you look at me up and down and scrutinize all intricate details to find a flaw,
I stand there with my head hung low and bleak eyes and clenched jaw.
All you want is the best version from me,
When my knees buckle after having walked limply;
I’m squeezing out morsels of all the energy in me,
Until they’re not enough anymore for you.
My blood turns blue,
And the umpteenth drop of blood I shed
For you to collect
Would still sum up to “few”.
Can’t you see the wrinkles on my palms?
Can’t you see the shackles they’re trying to break free
From?
Don’t you remember every time you dismissed my qualms,
And I stayed calm?
For raging would only harm
Me.
Why can’t I be the one you whisper lullabies to at night?
Why can’t we walk on stony paths and trample over the pebbles beneath our feet in lieu of the fights?
Why can’t I jump on your back and you’ll smile in delight?
Why can’t I keep rambling to you about the poems I love to write?
Why can’t you stare at me with affection when I do that, in lieu of your spite?
Why do I still keep dangling on the sharp needles you pelt at me?
Do I mistake them for hope?
Every single time?
Help me, will you? Please?
For the last time,
Clean the wounds on my knees;
I don’t wish to walk limply
Make me heave out the fury within me.
For the very last time.
Please?
~ Riddhi Chakraborty
Notes: This writing aims to illustrate the yearning of the speaker to make peace and reconcile with someone close, who has rather turned into a “critic”, which is more or less baseless and a “pipe dream”. They are being scrutinized and pushed to the limits to pull out all the stops to bring out the best out of them while they keep hanging one every shrewd word, craving for the opposite person’s hand to pull them out of the murk they’re dissolving in…While all of this stays pretty much just a fantasy.
Swan's Labyrinth 