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Every time i think of what makes me, all my thoughts rush back to one time
in my early childhood.
Sitting on a couch
near the table,
my mother gave me a long tedious exercise,
that of writing my name over and over again.
I refused,
she insisted.
I scratched my pencil
across the exercise.
She didn't say a word --
just up and left.
She did not look as disappointed as she looked defeated,
or failed.
I was given up and she went to her room for an afternoon nap.
Next, I felt remorrse
I can remember that feeling right now within me
slap in the center of my chest
going straight through like a hollow pipe
as if there were a hole there
Not where my heart is, to the left,
but right in the middle,
like the center of me was empty.
I remember crying
I was not old enough to muffle my sobs, or know why I should
so I bawled.
I bawled loud enough to wake both my parents and my brother
They came out to the living room, where I sat crying
and fussed over me
What was wrong?
Was I hurting somewhere? No
Was I hungry?
No
Did I want milk?
And here I saw the anxiety in my Mom's face
Almost fear at not being able to diagnose my condition
and I said 'Yes'
and a glass of white milk that made me shudder in disgust every morning
came to me
and I drank in the relief of my parents
and I drank in the reason
I cried
and I think I felt then as I do now:
somewhat relieved,
the hollowness in my chest filled.
Yet at my back
I feel the lingering ghost of it,
fleeting sometimes,
not always, just like a memory.
How can I explain
that that is what Chitra Kalyani really is?
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