By Sumitra Mishra
I have never been good at asking—
not for help, not for love,
not for the weight of a hand
to linger one exhale longer.
It was easier to fold the want
into fractals of dust,
to tuck it beneath my ribs
where the hollows hum
a tune no one hears.
But the truth is, I am a clock
ticking loud enough to wake the dead—
yet midnight stills every tongue
but mine.
The unsaid curdles in my throat—
Stay. Listen.—
two words thrashing like hooked fish,
but I swallow them back,
terrified they’ll bloom
into thorns you’ll name need.
So I hold my breath,
let the ache gnaw its alphabet
into my bones.
It’s safer
to starve than to reach
and grasp the static
where your voice
should have braided the air.
Needing is a clean wound—
but asking and meeting silence?
That’s the scar, its spores
still breathing.