By Ayushi Jaiswal
How does the air, the dirt, the very ground, conspire to keep you alive in me, when I’ve buried you a thousand times over?
The air conspires with the audacity of a thief, sneaking into my memory’s vault and pulling you out like a sacred thread only to slip into my lungs and bind my heart until it bleeds. I inhale just air but it comes in like scent of yours, intoxicating me with the fragrance that I’d recognize even on my deathbed. You linger like a whisper in the folds of my lungs, sharp and aching, refusing to let go. I inhale and exhale and repeat and repeat trying to expel you, only to fail, only to find you stitched deeper into my ribcage with every breath.
The dirt, oh, the dirt- a traitor in the face of friend with gentle hands. I buried you there, a thousand times over, to see you getting engulfed in its embrace never to be found. She promised me to keep you buried in there but instead she cradles you like a quiet secret, slowly letting you grow. Your roots growing deeper and stronger with flowers blooming in every corner with hues you once carried. Their fragrance has warmth you gave me once. It kills me to see you in corners but not here with me (don’t ever come back). The earth never buries- it preserves just as it preserved you.
The ground beneath my feet seems like a close friend turned enemy. Every step I ever take echoes with your laughter. It hums in the rhythm of your heartbeats, in the notes of your voice and the trembling of your lies. It holds me in place only to see my falling down- falling into grief.
And I, the foolish conspirator- dig thousands of graves to bury you in, but maybe I could never. I blame the air, the dirt, the ground and the flowers to keep you alive, only to realize it is I, who breath you like that’s what life is. I, who etched your presence into my ribcage. I, who buried you- never deep enough. I, who waters the yearning into flowers in your hues. I, who sings your name to everything like its fucking habit, only for it to echo back to me. It is me, who preserved you in the back of my mind.
How do you even bury a storm, a wildfire or a lightening? How do you silence the air, the dirt, the ground when all they do are just the echoes of your own screams, yearning and desperation? They conspire not out of malice but because they know the truth- I cannot admit: ‘You will never me because just as my muscles has muscle memories- my heart is also a cluster of muscles and you are retained in me even if you leave.’
By Ayushi Jaiswal
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