and my sister seven, tensions boiled over<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>in a game of hide & seek<\/p>\n & I slapped her. Thwack<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Her head shook while streams on her cheek<\/p>\n loamed into deepening red.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>She didn\u2019t talk to me for a week.<\/p>\n No chocolates, no sorry, no nothing.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>I even did her homework for a day. Still nothing.<\/p>\n She finally spoke when she found me<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>crying in a corner after India had lost a cricket match.<\/p>\n Today, years later she isn\u2019t picking up my calls<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>& I\u2019m here wondering if she\u2019s busy<\/p>\n or simply pissed with me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>I haven\u2019t seen her in long & in this hour of prolonged dusk,<\/p>\n I\u2019m trying to summon facts on her.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>But as I pace on my balcony, phone in hand,<\/p>\n watched by a sun rasping blood across a browning sky<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>all I gather is the colour of her slapped cheek.<\/p>\n And how on reconciliation after a week, she had said<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>I just wanted to see you cry<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I spot you in the cafeteria\u00a0<\/span>sitting with a faceless stranger<\/p>\n while I await my dosa\u00a0<\/span>at the desolate counter<\/p>\n you sip what seems like\u00a0<\/span>watermelon juice although<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure my blood is\u00a0<\/span>just as gruesome and thick<\/p>\n that must be how your cheeks\u00a0<\/span>are so red and faint<\/p>\n like blushes of sky at dawn\u00a0<\/span>attracting birds of fury<\/p>\n and strangeness unknown\u00a0<\/span>I see some wrens beak you playfully<\/p>\n the crimson spreads through your neck\u00a0<\/span>like a field of clover<\/p>\n the stranger inundated with anticipation\u00a0<\/span>he crosses his legs<\/p>\n underneath the table\u00a0<\/span>when you let out a laugh<\/p>\n I head back to work\u00a0<\/span>my appetite punctured\u00a0<\/span>my spirit flensed<\/p>\n my dosa tray trembles\u00a0<\/span>in the tremors of discovery<\/p>\n buried fears don\u2019t nibble\u00a0<\/span>they swallow<\/p>\n I try to tell myself\u00a0<\/span>it was probably someone else<\/p>\n but I find incriminating evidence\u00a0<\/span>when my colleague points out<\/p>\n continents of sambar\u00a0<\/span>on my white converse shoes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I spot you in the cafeteria sitting with a faceless stranger . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3664,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[1101,1102,1103,1104,1105],"class_list":["post-3662","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-jealousy","tag-once-when-i-was-eight","tag-sambar-on-my-shoes","tag-satya-dash","tag-sibling-rivalry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSambar on my shoes<\/h3>\n