My therapist tells me to practice spelling out S-T-O-P  I-T everyday, the words that I should have y

(Assume All Trigger Warnings)

Summer afternoons have
always been too salty,
A kind that squeezes
up your throat in a way,
that it even forgets to
heave the last sigh of existence.
It takes me back to that
day when I first tried
to run away,
The day when I first heard
the sound of my heart dropping,
A sound below 20hz, A sound
incomprehensible by normal
human beings-
A sound overwhelmed by the
screams discoloring the
the four walls that just stopped
being-home.

I remember
The pink scarf, the rusty
road with scratches that
went too deep.
Pink is my mother’s favorite
color, there was a time when
it used to match her cheeks.
Ironically, it is also the
color of the rose I plucked
for some secret teenage affair,
I choked it through my own
fingers, my palm is yet not
red from its blood, it just lies
with no breath.

I am a murderer, I have killed
A chubby child with a noisy laugh,
A headstrong teenager with
a tongue sharper than the
comments on a girl’s skirt
whose period started in the
middle of her maths class.
I have pulled away even
before reaching the edge,
wondering, what if the end
tempts me more than the
beginning ever did.
I have shushed resistance
with adjustments,
Fisted palms scripted with
words that never left my
fingers and, called it all
a part of my self-defense.
Maybe, if I had used my hands to
defend than to close my mouth,
She wouldn’t have those blue-black
ridges highlighting her arms,
that have carried the load of
five adults with zero help.

Now, I write poems to
apologize to all the
women I ever did wrong,
My poems scream words
that I never dared to
enunciate,
My therapist tells me to
practice spelling out
S-T-O-P I-T every day,
The words that I should
have yelled that day.

Isha Adhikari

#anger #IshaAdhikari #Therapy