Monthly Archives: November 2022

i don’t stay long enough

i don’t stay long enough to hear the applause

mainly because i feel like i don’t deserve it

i don’t stay long enough to be loved

letters from lost lovers lie strangled in mess of my mind

i don’t dare to open them

for im scared of all the missed love stories

i move through people’s lives like a drift

i don’t like the ways they’ve looked at me.

the ways they’ve perceived me.

i don’t know when i turn transform from a person to a concept

a figment of their ideas.

i run back to my home reducing everything into a metaphor

;

they asked me where do i want to be in the next 5 years

i want to have an exit door

i want a little extra space

i want the little spaces between the boxes to breathe

to flow into

i want to run as i fast i can

i want to breathe in a land beyond the four walls

i want the strength to push these walls when they creep onto me

when every metaphor i write comes crumbling down into the ugly truth it was

when no artistry can aid the blood dripping over the same four walls;

when i can’t separate my breath and smoke anymore

i need the strength.

the power

to stay.

to fight back.

-Avni Jain

picture-perfect destiny

mom

how have you been

we are in the same house 

a floor away

but i can feel myself distancing from you

because i’m afraid 

i’m afraid you would recognize i’m not the person you raised 

i’m afraid that you will see through these carefully concealed scars

i’m afraid the smoke lingering on me would catch you

and im sorry.

i’m sorry,

i was supposed to be the strong one

i was supposed to have the soul of an angel but the hands of a fighter

but mom, i couldn’t fight.

i wanted to but i didn’t.

couldn’t.

i grieve for the woman you wanted to raise

for the fighter, you wanted to raise 

but how do i tell you

that existing every day like this

feels like a battle in itself 

how do i tell you that every breath i take comes with a warning sign 

i know you didn’t want to see me like this

trust me neither did i

i wanted the picture-perfect life

you and i envisioned on the first day of kindergarten

the one i was destined for;

but i am not tall enough to climb those heights anymore

and i don’t know what my destiny beholds now.

all i want right now is to breathe.

-Avni Jain