Celina Bagchi '24
“No, I thought—”
“Again and again and again—”
“Still you try—”
You never seem to finish
your sentences.
You kiss my worn fingertips and
sleep-deprived eyelids and
hope that it will be enough.
You swallow a fistful of pills to
match the whites of swollen tired eyes, begging
for release, for peace, for your thoughts to cease.
You look out of the window and I see you wonder
if the people, mere specks on the ground below
see you at all.
You leave footprints in
freshly fallen snow and
muddy trekked paths.
You wade into the depths of the ocean
waiting, it seems
for the water to swallow you whole.
You pray with your hands folded
together, porcelain breakable fingers pressed
flat against open air, facing a statue as fragile as the faith
you claim to have in it.
You stand in the storm, the clear
blue sky behind you and
a vortex of emotions engulfing you.
You smile, finally, and the world stops—
stares,
Like the sun peeking out
from behind the cover of cumulus clouds.
And when your bones have mended, you
turn to the God you promised your life, to the
love you have forsaken, to the
people you tried to leave behind and you
finally finish the sentence
you were trying to say.
“Still you try, even when you have
failed again and again and again, and your
eyes are red from the world’s cruelty, you
choose to see the beauty in canvases made of pale skin, in
hair that gleams when sunlight falls through a window pane, in
passing your eyes and earthly, fallible, temporal love
on to beings who will never understand
your tragedy.”