screaming
pink tiles of our bathroom
drained in lumps
of blood
drying down her calves
clenched wrists molars memory
muscle spasm Meftal-Spas
womb
unclenching
Dr Bhuyan’s chamber waiting bills bed rest
crinkling packets of ORS absence
of cooing face buried
under our thickest blanket
nursing her
pain
prayer
how the body
resists
violence unannounced
how it pulls
the trigger—
warning: none
Shlagha Borah (she/her) is a poet, researcher and freelance writer from Assam. Her work has been published in TTTxPenguin, Catharsis Magazine, Aainanagar, GroundXero, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Pink Freud, a student-led collective working towards making mental health accessible in India. She is currently working as the Editor-In-Chief of Shabd Aaweg Review and Associate Poetry Editor at Doubleback Review. She can be contacted @shlaghab on Instagram.
Featured image: Pawel Czerwinski/Unsplash