the thunder only screams, it dies to cry

(Maa, are you listening?)
I wake up in the nights thrashing my limbs around,
the blood rushing to my head
screaming and crying,

the thunder only screams, it dies to cry

voice inside my head refuses to stay quite
rope around my neck tightens its grip
the ashes of a dead poem making
a noose around my windpipe

/akshita you’re a failure,
you’re a burden
you are a disgrace to the family name
an abomination/

trying hard to see tomorrow’s sun,
tell myself tomorrow will be better,
tomorrow I will feel whole again – except that I don’t.

/baba, no
baba don’t pull me out of school
I promise not to bleed
(a body function I cannot control)
don’t place bars on my windows
my body is convulsing
I can’t control this/

 slashes across my wrist increases,
there are red marks all over
he pinned my hands while biting my lips
there is blood all over

/you dug your skin into my nails
into my skin to scoop out all my light
the story behind a smudged lipstick/

Nani calls me a disgrace,
 I dig my nails into my palms
staring at a stranger in the mirror
I hardly recognize her anymore.

/sad eyes and pretty smiles,
maa said you could destroy angst with anguish,
it’s true.
I’m named after agony./

could all this pain could save us?

/silver irises and moon like shine hiding
from the truth the truth refusing to let go./

I have rewritten apologies on wet tissues,
scrawled with the blood of my carnages
oh, what a sight that would have been,
lying on the floor with the paleness of dead lips,
I ask maa one last time, what does love mean?
she said, “love was the human form of a hurricane.”