An Ode

By Shrishti Negi

Where have you gone?

Even now, would you rather

Stay silent in this new dawn

Than be by my side?

I am alone, have been,

Long before you died.

But, I wonder if I can lean

On you from the water

Where what remained of you now rests.

Or, are you ashamed of your own daughter?

Or, are all my sufferings and pain little jests

For you to laugh about too?

It’s the same with you gone.

I’m left to unravel the words you

Left unsaid in the lawn

Of the tangled web.

The lawn can be mowed

Hoping to ebb

The multitude of emotions that were sowed

With or without intention

But they always grow back taller.

What advanced invention

Can possibly help hauler

That away which isn’t anybody’s to tame?

The shape of which can’t be fathomed can’t be shaped.

This isn’t just any game

Where the wounds can be taped.

The outside heals but the inside never does.

You can’t even fathom the hurt.

If only you could hear through the fuzz,

And help me out of the dirt

That chokes the life out of me.

Or, are you too far gone?

I wonder if you are able to see

Or hear or feel the pain of your troubled fawn.

Or, am I all alone

Answering to the consequences of my own bad choices

Of which I can never atone?

- Words that one of your daughters voices

By Shrishti Negi