Tucked into an ice bath
Someone served me a
rough-edged glass of smooth
cough syrup with a price change of
smiles.
my eyes lit up. I smiled after months.
the syrup overthrew desperation too.
what a magic syrup!
Blown away by the taste and enriched lightness
I went outside.
From the air,
a bird dropped something.
it landed on the dog’s head.
no second chance.
The air took a breather
i gulped some nothingness.
someone gave me another glass of cough syrup.
sipping the liquid,
I asked my niece to learn a second language
perhaps Tamil.
I know Japanese, she shrugged.
The dog killed the neighbour’s cat
god killed my Dad.
brazen grief unwrapped
in a sluggish pace.
in a hopeless wander, squished by sleeplessness
and dissolved by tears, I walked.
trust broken, God limped away.
I dreamt of alternative options
for lunch. The anemic salad stayed.
Dad will never taste anything
No one will ask if I’ve
eaten
painted
read or wrote.
the day continued, night stayed.
His tablets keep expiring, too.
They appealed in the ‘waste not,
want not,’ mode. The strife, thrived.
In the mirror, his face peeks through
my face, ending the thought.
Phew! Freshly hatched abstinence for alcohol
alongside an introduction to syrups.
Another glass of syrup.
The land shrunk with
laden heat. I looked at the chair. The
same leaning one where Dad
slept
rested
listened
and waited as I took his blood pressure.
The highs, the lows.
The really high that sent him
away.
Now the cat sleeps curled.
Let me add an ‘also’.
out of the corrals, you
said I exist too. When they put a
full stop after the sentence, I changed it
a comma. Without the enslavement, you
took in the juicy air. The warmth
richly overshadowed the
doubts lot of their questions and
accusations bred.
Space in logic
I was upset
at my eye. The
left one. It had
shut up shop, you see.
I asked dear merciful God
for vision. Our dear merciful God
paralyzed me for seven months
and took my life. Now I
see in full.
Merlin flower is an independent artist and writer
