I am innocent as the last drop of tears, I am cherished like the first morsel of rice for the hungry, I am the unspoken truth that blinks against your ten lies, I am defiant as a sixteen-year-old girl.
I am like sacred cold water, I am the gentle fragrance of a flower! I have burned myself and told the fire, 'Here, devour me into yourself.'
I am the exhaustion in the eyes of a new mother sleepless for four nights straight, I am detached like the foolish boy who failed at school, I am the sky-flower dreams of a village housewife in the harsh sun, I am a wonder-tale like grandmother's stories on winter afternoons.
The lemon tea in your hands when you wake each morning—that is me. I am your most beloved volume of Rabindranath's stories. I am the crystalline chime of white glass bangles, I am the wet cloth pressed to a fevered forehead.
I am equal to a satisfying smoke after the last grain of rice, or perhaps this very I is the most terrible truth of all—like death.