grief card 14

--- art by Samhita Kimsetty, prompt by NHC, The Importance of Routine

The routine became as unbearable

as it was predictable. In the beginning

was it word or pain? The word of pain.

The pain of word. Even when the water

broke, a pair of scissors took to my mother

widening my passage.

From where I was torn, I threatened

to spill out, my voice for help

that never came, my guts without 

that help. In the middle

was a punished hunger, a bowl of rice a 

bowl of beads of farmers' sweat, thanks

my father instructed on my birthdays

for my mother's pain. In the end

the furniture was rearranged

upright, the doors closed, dinner

set sumptuously on the table, wind

silently passing over and passing over.