I am not who you think i am

By Vrischika Kotak

i am not who you think i am, mom. i write more words than i speak so, when the world turns at night, i tear myself apart trying to fix everything that’s wrong with me.

there’s something deep within me that is broken and rotting and i can’t seem to put my finger on it. my mind is a prison in itself, the walls here are painted with memories that ricochet which is to say that i have been running, running, running from my own self.

you think of me as a child who is inconsolable but mom, i have just been hiding away the parts of myself in a corner of our rusty balcony. my heart has this distinct smell, like rancid meat under a stairwell,it is brittle and it only beats out of my chest.my eyes are filled with pasts i am yet to bury, i have been at war with myself since the very beginning. my hands carry the grief of losses that weren’t mine, they tremble with the horrors of this reality, so i cut them off and put them aside, they were only ever taught how to destroy. this body has haunted me for a while now, i think about death as if it is all i was ever made for but death is not something to be trifled with, you can never cheat it.

By Vrischika Kotak