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By Debanjana Majumder

My body is a cemetery I often call “home”.
And with every new visitor,
I like to give them a tour.

I show them-

My mind-
The room where the bags are stored,
Each piled on the other, waiting for its turn.

My heart-
The garden where once flowers bloomed,
But now ache in despair,
Hopelessly falling to the ground,
Where I dig up graves instead to occupy the space,
The companionship of dread,
Making me feel less alone.

My flesh -
The soil, made fertile with dust from bones,
Now, dry and withered enough
To teach me the value of moments lost.

My soul-
Which I haven’t witnessed in years
Since I left my hometown,
But have kept fragments of, secretly,
On the night it broke,
When I had my first panic attack.

My visitors are often pleased
And decide to move in soon after,
With their heavy baggage of toxic love.
And I let them do so,
In the hope of a change of stars.

They stay for months - sometimes years -
And take the rent from me instead.
And even after I’ve unlawfully paid,
They decide to cut me off.

And the next morning, as I open the gates,
I find my front porch covered in bodies-
Dead and foul.

So I wrap them up in plastic bags,
And stack them up in my head,
Take my shovel and make holes in my heart-
Kind enough to give them a proper burial,
And let time do the rest of the work.

And after all is done and the sun has set,
I go back to my room and count the pieces of soul I have left.