Nemesis

Nemesis

today, I will place a memory ---

against the chopping board, where she has sliced

many a vegetable, peeled many a fruit

I shall scrape its clinging strings,

before working on the soul

the soul, is the scar of the memory

the seed, the sapling that never grew

fair hands, with bejeweled fingers

 painted with the fresh, yellow poetry of newness 

the vernacular verses of a new life

 

upon uprooting the soul, and perhaps, tossing it aside

I shall let my fingers touch the heart,

and let my agonized nails

 claw at the zip-lock bags,

where she’d stored her heartbeats

one-by-one

the lilac hues of her sparkling silk

knotted into his life 

 

and as I rip the plastic,

in a ferocious, angry frenzy

I hear her heartbeats roar,

as they’re rippled with the first winds

of freedom

now that the heart is dealt with, I shall go on –

with these sticky, clinging strings

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bearing the ambiguous shape

of a myriad, unspoken stories

the sourness of hunger on her tongue

the hunger that penetrated her very being 

and how it sat upon her rosy lips 

the moisture of a prayer 

 

and then, once it is all done –

I shall scrub the chopping board,

attempting to vanquish all the traces,

of what it left behind

perhaps, like the stain of a crimson tomato

the dark footprint of a plump beetroot

the soul-print of the dark, dark night

the creak of a shooting star,

as it knives through the sky

the squeak of that wind-kissed swing

where she sat with longing eyes

a heart shriveled like a discarded poem

craving the momentary moisture,

of a bit of soothing prose,

knotted with the threads of time

somewhat reminiscent of the crimson edges

of that first bridal sari 

adorned with the diamond-mirrors 

reflecting all those tears