The First Ten Days of July

By Kaavin Farwaha

I see the rain crawl down the glass,

No thunder, just ghosts of the past.

A breath I forgot how to take-

each inhale now a quiet quake.

The house groans with every tread,

like bones beneath the weight of dread.

Too many voices, too much air-

the walls lean in like they’re aware.

Mom wears grief like scented smoke,

you don’t see it -until you choke.

Dad is a ghost not the scary kind,

just the type that leaves nothing behind.

This room is my twin in hollow form,

it shivers when my chest grows warm.

Not breath I hold, but something worse,

a buried scream, a careful curse.

I feel like a stone that learned to weep,

that stays unbroken just to keep.

To “socialise” is blood on lace

a smiling knife, a stranger’s face.

They orbit me like shattered moons,

close for warmth then gone too soon.

No one warned me that losing yourself

is a slow quiet rot, small dust on a shelf.

Crushes? Marks? I miss that sound,

when smaller fears still wrapped me ‘round.

Like toys we tossed, left on the floor,

they mattered once- they softened war.

I see a stranger in my skin,

he doesn’t lose, he doesn’t win.

He watches me with hollow grace,

He silently stole me behind my face.

He knows I’m gone, he doesn’t ask,

He wears my body like a mask.

I remember one day - 26th April,

the MUN, where chaos felt playful.

I didn’t win a thing, not one prize,

but I laughed with real tears in my eyes.

Since then, I’m buried under sound,

in crowds where I am never found.

Furniture inside a blaze,

talking loud through smoky gauzy haze.

Talk, call, meet, repeat -

not one pause, not one heartbeat.

I’m afraid of silence, I confess -

but I fear the noise just as much, I guess.

I want to say, “I’ll fight the flame,”

but I’m the wick so am I to blame?

Worn down and tired, nothing to give,

just trying, every second, to live.

I lie down, not to sleep or dream,

but to remember things as they seem.

What I didn’t do, what I never said,

flickers of thought overwhelm me while lying in bed.

I want to breathe with peace, not war,

to open lungs and not keep score.

To laugh, and mean it like I did,

not wait to watch the joy skid.

I want to see my eyes and say,

“There you are , you came back today.”

Not flinch at who I’ve grown to be,

not fear my own reflection’s plea.

I want to strip this shadowed weight,

the noise, the hush, this twisted fate.

I want to smile, raw and true,

but I don’t know if I can break through.

Is that too much to ask of the sky?

Of time that passes blinking by?

The first ten days of July!

a decade trapped behind one sigh.

And I’m still here beneath the rain,

a boy who bleeds but hides the stain.

Waiting for a voice, a sign, a call-

a reason to rise but I find nothing at all.

By Kaavin Farwaha