How to fold grief so it looks like duty

i started this yesterday. or the day before.
does it matter. i don't like the smell of masala clinging to my sleep.

i meant to write about
something.
Something about anger—
The kind that rises
when the land is ploughed and my house falls apart again.

sorry i have to
soak the rice


i had to check on the fever.
I had to wipe the counter, then the floor, then my own mouth.


10:42 a.m.

Father doesn’t believe in help.
He’ll break his back before asking for it.
today he is angry
because the tomatoes went bad and I forgot the second sabzi and that i am not a doctor

and

Ma needs paracetamol.


1:17 p.m.

i think I was saying—
I am tired.
not the kind of tired sleep can fix
i dream of recipes or the timeline of english literature
i cannot find my slippers i think i didnt keep them properly father must be angry. how tightly to shut the fridge door,
how to fold grief so it looks like duty.

I read somewhere that care is political.
i must cook lunch before facebook shows another cousin
with a government job
a wedding date


5:08 p.m.

I was staring at the rain-filled pond.
The land’s been sold. battered land, half-sold and half-waiting, has become a pond. I click photos like I’m proof that something beautiful still exists
marriage
grades career

the fever hit last night.
I slept all day. i want someone to touch my forehead
I made tea for everyone.



morning

she's sick now.
I do the kitchen. She doesnt like being told what to do.
I cried while chopping garlic.
i cleaned the spew

day

I want to have an opinion
I want to talk politics outside
the kitchen
find my name in a bibliography read a novel or two

or maybe just write something whole
a full sentence a full
thought

I crush mangoes the way I have always seen it done—
by hand.
Skin against fruit,
pulp thick between fingers,
a kind of mess that leaves its mark
even after the water runs cold.

You didn't ask to be taught.
You watch—
the quiet choreography of women in the kitchen,
pressing sweetness from bruised flesh.

Love is the little things.
A bowl resting on cool tile.
Sunlight pooling on a wrist.
A thumb sinking into golden meat.

You learn to care by doing,
again,
And again—
You carry forward
what no one said aloud.
And maybe that’s the inheritance:
the Motion.
There’s something sacred
in making something with your hands.
Even when they’re tired.
Even when they are no longer yours
alone.

You begin to carry the house
without noticing—
until your body folds into its corners,
so much so that you start to smell of lineage.

Sometimes, I look at my hands
and wonder if they were meant
to be softer, gentler—
like a woman’s hands are supposed to be.
But what women are we speaking of?

The ones I’ve known
grip both pens and spatulas with the same urgency,
palms etched with burn marks,
ink trails,
flour tucked into nail beds—

Still, there are nights I want to return glowing,
still full from laughter,
not peeling leftovers from the sink
under flickering kitchen lights.

Nights I want to look down
and not see the day
etched into the curve of my cuticles.
Nights when sleep would come easy,
not weighted by the memory
of folding shirts with care
and still not knowing how to keep a man.