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I was always possessive
a magpie clutching its glitter,
a child gripping candy too tight to share.
My white saree still smells of unshed evenings,
the Lamy pen holds poems I never gave away,
and the dog-eared Sherlock Holmes...
no one else has traced its pages with their fingers.
I let nothing slip.
Not even a sigh.
Not even for a second.
But that night
you loomed above,
your shadow devouring mine,
while I sank into the coverlet,
its threads thick with the musk of women
who had arched, gasped, and spilled
their ghosts here before me.
I do not grieve for you.
Not your touch,
nor the ruin it left on my skin.
My quiet rage
is for the coverlet
faithless, perfumed with strangers,
holding their secrets tighter
than it ever held me.
