On paper
I was born in August.
Was scissored out
from my mother’s land.
Pale and underweight.
My mother bled profusely
and still bleeding.
The crooked line on her abdomen
has an age-old wound.
It was cut randomly
by indifferent, ruthless imagination.
Though not like the red of the
Radcliffe’s one.
While snipping through my mother’s belly
the novice operator tore our souls away.
My twin sister blames me for her sickness
and I curse her too.
Unlike Saleem Sinai
We are not auspicious midnight’s children
I was born on the 16th of August.
Without magic.
But with the burden of death.
I hear my mother’s groaning.
The wound has infested her famished flesh.
Is she still breathing
Or am I hallucinating?
She can’t respond
A flag has got stuck in her throat.
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection The Musings of the Dark is available on Amazon.
Featured image: Big G Media / Unsplash