BY SHRIYANSHI YADAV
When my father split open a barely cracked pistachio just to give a piece of it to me
I could feel my heart bursting in my chest.
In our household,
love is often present in the form of broken plates on the floor
and splattered blood on the edge of the cracks.
We don't say the word l-o-v-e like we say violence,
but most of the time its presence is felt in the quiet,
just like that cup of coffee that used to sit at my table during the bad days
or those bloomed marigolds my father picked for my ever-religious mother.
I thought love was in this dichotomy
that lived in the warmth and cold moments of my house.
I thought it was a promise that one could keep on making just to break it again.
Years later,
as I try to forget the songs that I heard from the spaces between the doors
or the memories neatly tucked in the pieces of my heart,
the whisps of wind travel from my home to this far-off city,
bringing the scent of those freshly cut marigolds
and the saltiness of the same pistachio shells that I licked.