This Will Be Some Sight When Dawn Comes

Of course, when you first brought me here, I thought you were insane. You’re always like this. You twist your words until I get whiplash at the cadence of your language. You steal a strand of my hair every time you go scavenging in other homes. I didn’t want to scare you but I look gruesome in the mirror. Light pools and drips from my cheekbones, and rots in the curve of my neck. My body is covered in razor bumps from your incessant need for a prize. I mean, I can see my nostrils flare but can’t feel the ballooning of my lungs. I archive each gift you give me until the flowers wilt into the sheets. I kept trying to run away from you but when I looked back you were never there. Your shadow was home with the washing machine humming. When we fight, you come back like a stain with a begging promise, and I’d be inhumane to let you go. To scratch you away. In your pupils, I see myself warp and ripple and grow smaller by the minute. You take up so much space. The entire couch is yours. The kitchen, the garden, my heart. I can’t stand you, I think. I think you need to go, but I say it with my fingers clamped over my eyes. I say it with a certain sweating in my teeth. My voice gags out of me like a hairball and settles under the gutters. But damn, you’ve outdone yourself. This place is beautiful. Look at the sea, the sliding roofs, the scuttling tail lights. It’s going to be some sight when the sun rises. 

Sulakshana Guha is a writer from Bhopal, India. Her work has appeared in places like Kyoto Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, and Flora Fiction. She serves as the Managing Editor of The Trailblazer Literary Magazine.

A Song for Sulakshana