Writer: Ayushi Roy
i sit down for the plane ride back to my house—
it is no longer my home;
i am only a guest.
before i left for the first time,
the mosaicist told me she loved me.
i have to move to this new place and leave her behind
but i still ring her bell.
she says she cannot bear being away from me,
how come she never opens her door any longer?
i’ve rung on bells enough to know that the implication of the summation of voicemails is a persona
non grata.
the only way forward is through
but also
the only way forward is backwards
and through.
now i’m here with this boy i once knew; he could stop mercury from directing backwards.
he’s hurt himself in the leg;
i ask him how he is, and he asks me how i am.
(we cut ties but he’s never really leaving.)
but, hey, guess who i ran into walking towards the books?
doesn’t he remember that i’ve been in this exact place a year and a half back?
i stayed up all my six nights with him, running in circles only so i could keep talking to him.
this is where he learnt of the accident for the first time;
he knows all that i’ve been through and he knows i’m finally happy now,
why is he not proud of me, then, for this new life i built for myself?
i should’ve known all that glitter could never remain gold when i’d pass by all his friends and
he could not even look me in the eyes anymore.
the only way forward is backwards
and through.
then i think of the boy i once loved,
no one knows how much it took for me to not care enough anymore.
but i cared enough for the girls that came along!
we have gone from having a kind of intimacy to an order of alienation.
the vision they held of me, i have tried so hard but i just don’t understand why.
how i had extended my hand out against my will before i left—
a self-sustained sand oak, i have tried so hard but i still don’t understand why
every one of their blows were aimed at me.
the only way forward is backwards
and through.
so i go back to the girl i grew up with;
i must always have her because we were girls together, right?
before i ever left, i asked her only so much as to just show up.
i have never been one to give up
maybe that is why i never understood how she gave up so easily.
and i am not the same girl i was, so i cannot make do with half-hearted apologies.
i do not know how to logically define hope,
so i simply sit here
and i pray.
i grieve and i pray .
and my phone rings !
a friend from back home is calling.
is it too soon for me to feel loved?
i pick up his call.
“hey, sorry, i called you by mistake.”
“no, that’s okay!”
and i start walking to get food so i can forget.
a friend from back home is calling.
is it too soon for me to feel loved?
i pick up her call.
“hey, sorry, i called you by mistake.”
“oh!”
i do not resent any of them because i have forgiven them;
i do not regret anything i have done in the aftermath because it is only what i must have done.
but there is grief that comes with the concept of what could have been;
there is grief that comes with the reality of a place of familiarity turning into one of unfamiliarity.
so when i return, i sit in the middle of the sunken field
and between these two places that i’ve been over,
no one but me knows:
how much courage it took to be this forgiving,
how much agony it took to be this kind.
– ayushi.
