That Moment
(First appeared in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine)
Like a storm that
came from nowhere.
Like a newly bought clock that
just stopped ticking.
Like a pot full of food that
took a lifetime in the making,
suddenly slipped from the hands
to the ground, splattering all over the place.
Like a book
near the end
with its pages
torn out.
Like a pair of shoes
always worn
but now with
one gone missing.
Like a phone with
a dead dial tone.
Like a door that’s been
slammed shut.
Like that photo
carried inside your wallet
of that one person
you love the most
is all
that’s left
of them
anymore.
“To love is to lose oneself!”
(Previously published in Loud Zoo, Bedlam Publishing)
Said my uncle
almost with no sense of irony,
as it left me muttering to myself:
unless you’re a man!
For my Auntie
love followed a very predictable pattern.
Lovelessness transformed into marriage,
marriage into somewhat of a losing streak,
the last name was (as is usually) among the first to go.
The name we carried all our lives,
one of the first things we learnt to write,
the name that was called in the classroom
every time the teacher took the attendance, and
we replied: Yes! Present!
as our friends tried to distract us, tease us, make us giggle.
The name we would use
year after year,
paper after paper,
on our examination sheets,
the name we’d be desperate
to find on the school board
written next to pass, every time the results came out and
we’d breathe a sigh of relief.
The name mentioned in our
report cards, certificates, degrees
once we graduated,
the name we couldn’t wait
to show our parents
for we knew that was as close
as they were ever going to get
to feel as if it was they who graduated
because life failed them long ago.
The name that filled their eyes
with tears of joy and pride.
All of this and
all that it represented
is the first to go.
Overnight the house we called our own
turns into just another guesthouse,
reminding us our time’s up
to pack our bags and go,
reminding us as if
we overstayed our welcome,
though, its owner always knew
(and never let us forget)
we were not the permanent kind anyway.
We could not afford the house, and
the house could not afford us,
the home we grew up in
is the next to go.
From what we’re allowed to cook,
to what we’re allowed to wear
to how long (if at all) can we have a working life
to how many friends can we keep in our private lives.
All these questions queue up in line,
autonomy is the next to go.
Why must we lose ourselves,
lose who we are,
just to be deemed worthy
of being loved?
If what’s known as ‘love’
necessitates one to lose, the one
who has always lost,
as a precondition,
as a prerequisite,
then this game has already
chosen its winner
before it even began.
To love is to gain,
not to lose,
least of all – oneself.
Prerna Bakshi is a writer, poet and activist of Indian origin, currently based in Macao. She is the author of the recently released full-length poetry collection, Burnt Rotis, With Love, which was long-listed for the 2015 Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in the UK and cited as one of the ‘9 Poetry Collections That Will Change The Way You See The World’ by Bustle in the US. Her work has been published widely, most recently in The Ofi Press, Sick Lit Magazine, Red Wedge Magazine, TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism and Prachya Review: Literature & Art Without Borders, as well as anthologized in several collections, including America Is Not The World by Pankhearst. Website: http://prernabakshi.strikingly.com/
SICK LIT MAGAZINE 