Namitha Kuttiparambil
I. The Fall
I was almost certain I was dreaming.
Placid, while tucked into the warmth of my bed;
The smell of fresh sheets and lemons wafting in the air
And yet,
Some part of me was also sure
That I was falling.
There was no way my mind could conjure up these images unprompted:
The wind-
Unwinding my dress,
Peeling it from my limbs;
It's silky sheen glowing bright against my brown skin
Like a jelly fish-
Puffing and shrinking
In the dead of the night.
II. The Feeling
I had always wondered how
Floating in air would compare
To lying in water.
I had spent hours,
Days dazed,
Trying to measure my ease in the sea
To an unknown feeling;
Trying,
To answer all these questions that began with
Would I or Will it
or Could it possibly be?
But when the time came,
All I felt was the brisk air;
Goosebumps, rising on my flesh;
My senses, momentarily aware
That this was it; that this
Was my fall.
III. The Undoing.
It began with one line.
Causing nothing but a faint itch
In the lining of my nose
Leaving me wanting more;
So I drew one more.
The campsite bathed in moonlight
Was suddenly a feast to my eyes
And I didn’t want this feeling to subside-
I inhaled another line
In retrospect, I guess
My cautious mind
Was overpowered by this desire
To feel truly alive; Untethered
To the confines which dictated my life
So I swiped right, with my nose again.
I was chasing this feeling that was now leaving behind
A void so deep that I scrambled onto my feet
Just to feel the crunch of the earth; Just to feel.
And as my mind wandered,
I remembered my questions.
And as my mind wandered
At the edge of the cliff,
The moonlight and the fifth line
Brought such clarity that
When a sudden, childish voice in my head asked me to jump,
To self-destruct,
I did.