On Anxiety
Some days I'm just unable to write. I gape at the phone's screen, scrolling away mindlessly until my eyes start aching. I eat rice with a spoon, ammi always tells me to do otherwise just the way Bengalis are supposed to do. It doesn't matter, both way I'm eating the same food— my argument goes. Deep down I know I'm upsetting her, but something more complicated keeps knocking on my mind.
I am a good daughter. I am a bad daughter. It is the way it is. I cannot change it no matter how hard I strive to be graceful. The T.V screen is dull. The walls are dull. Baba's voice is hollow. The pattern on cushion covers are swaying and straigntening. The lines on my palms are fading. Or am I just blacking out again?
The sight of food makes me wanna puke. Roti and dal. On other days I thank God for them. Alhamdulillah. But on days like this, something churns inside my tummy. It makes me wanna throw up. Even if I do, I have to do it secretly. I don't want to worry mother unnecessarily. Only three rooms in our house. It's a space where everybody knows what everybody is doing. On days like this I want to flee home. Comfort suffocates me. Affectionate words suffocate me. Can somebody really love me?
Days that follow are the days when my body won't stop shaking and trembling until I shout my words into my journal. I get tremors until I throw up all the poems clotted inside my throat. Words flow. I can't cry.
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