Is Any Body Home?

By Shreeja Ravindranathan

In this house,

We each occupy a room

and worries occupy our minds. 

And 

the realty and reality 

are rent by our howls 

from being yoked to corporate ogres 

for 9 hours a day 

and more.

I don’t know if Amma had lunch

and Acha doesn’t know if I spent lunch 

crying in a bathroom stall.

And we are three husks of people,

waiting for a weekend to flower into a family.

Dead lines tick in the bags beneath our eyes, 

Bills encash the black of our hair for greys.

We work and work and work and work 

but something about us doesn’t. 

I see us rooted to couches, illuminated by the TV, 

consuming a meal as time consumes us. 

But we aren’t home. 

By Shreeja Ravindranathan