People Made of People

By Shreyaa Deori

wishing wells have the same depth as your eyes

and i wish they didn’t look so inviting.

in many places wells are covered

with a tin sheet, a net roof or an ugly fence,

like an invitation you didn’t RSVP to.

the expurgation is so familiar

to fall in love with it

is reflex.

the night before i went to university

my mother called me her magnum opus.

she emphasised every kind of safety

before empathy;

“don’t care about others” she repeated

like a sorceress chanting the ultimate spell

that was going to make her brew magical.

my mother and reciprocity are star-crossed lovers,

even when she claims to sit in the porch for peace

anxiety’s quakes through her body lies evident on her ankles;

she waits in anxiousness

to receive what she gave to others.

the taps of her ankle against the bench’s wood

is code for “come back to me. in any form. but do.”

in a biology class,

i refute when they say that humans are made 60% of water

because i know

that my mother is made up of her unfulfilled desire

and i,

of her.

By Shreyaa Deori