Old Habits

Things that happened in a second:

[ he is cowering against the shadows of rusted needles-

blood congealed on his scarred face,

gleaming with the smouldering linen off his mother’s stole-

he lights his cigarette and glowers at the pictures on the wall.

face ashen from the perpetual nightmares at the church, he returns to his dingy apartment,

and scans his room that reeks of her memories:

the crocheted coasters atop the bedside table,

and the pillows she laid her head on;

the fleeced sweaters that she bought for him,

and the notebook she drew his portraits on.

there are waves hidden beneath these tiles of marble,

and a ceasing gust of wind behind these walls;

the smoke billowing out of his cigarette hides a memory,

and he freezes the sight of his flimsy eyes staring back at him in the mirror,

till the grief wears off his chest,

but memories of old habits are not frozen.

they change;

like his pillow covers every weekend-

every new version is a new era,

suited to his overdue survival,

and his classic new habits evict the deleterious nature of life;

hanging by a sliver of light that peeks through the keyhole,

and drunk from the emptiness of love,

he blinks away a dimensionless pain,

and sinks in the capsule of time- 

ticking away like the waning cigarette between his fingers,

blurring the flames of her name that chime

in his sleep,

like how the silence of old habits lingers ]

A second passes.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: grief is a pattern that repeats itself each passing second; and perhaps whilst overcoming a certain aspect of distress, grieving becomes an old habit carved somewhere in our DNA. a character from the book that i am reading currently inspired this piece.