by Manjari Thakur
It grows out of boxes
And little things
Like the way he looked at me
When I was sleepless
In winter mornings
Or when I burned down
The milk to my bone
And the coffee,
Turned black
In hesitation
That was the first time my tongue tasted
Bitter
I put three whole sugar cubes
And let it rest for life
And so it grew
Out of the jar, and the boxes
And the curtains
Till one day
It covered almost
Half of my ribcage.
That day it pained
A foggy pain
The kind you don’t anticipate
And I remember trying to make sense
Out of boxes.
—
Manjari Thakur is currently an MPhil research scholar at Jadavpur University, India. She has completed her Masters in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her research interests lie in trauma studies, prison literature, protest literature and politics of violence in the Indian subcontinent. Apart from research, she occasionally enjoys writing a poem or two.