Pratiksha Ahuja

In the dressing room, my friend says no man can love her back.

She turns, shows me her back:

its many dark eyes and soft dips,

freckles like a galaxy come undone.

At night in bed, she imagines a mouth

hot at her throat,

palms reverent on her hips.

She laughs, or sobs. Either way,

her shoulders tremble in the many mirrors.

I almost have the words,

but she’s already straightened,

called herself silly.

She returns the dress,

says it’s too tight at her chest.

‍

This, I know

My body bleeds every month, but

I don’t always live there.

Neither did my mother. Nor my grandmother.

Look too long in my eyes, and you will see them—

    it—

the exhaustion, the rage,

a frothing of women.

Where I go back into my past and change nothing.

Only hindsight gives this kind of audacity.

This brazen gall.

We’re only this cruel

with a couple good days in the pocket,

some memories to keep us warm. Otherwise,

we know the truth.

How could we not?

It sits on the throat,

squeezes out the song.

If I take one step into the past,

I run to my mother.

I grab her skirt, tug

till she looks up from her phone.

I fall to my knees.

I beg not to be born.

---

Pratiksha Ahuja (she/her) is a poet based in Goa, India. She grew up in a fractured home, crafting stories to survive and to understand who she is. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Sky Island Journal, PHIL LIT, Novus Literary, The B'K Magazine, & Does It Have Pockets, among others. Instagram: @storieswithpratiksha