Ragdoll
--
My sweet, you
asked me
about Insanity
insanity
/ɪnˈsanəti/
noun
the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness.
I held up
peachblossom
candies
for you, and
ruminated
the whistling
monster; eyes
carmine, chasing
me
till I slipped into
my greyscaled,
homestead
listening to mom’s
sewing machine
ratatat
ratatat
‘Ma, I want to play’
ratatat
‘Sing to me at night?’
ratatat
‘Ma, there’s a monster outside’
ratatat
her eyes, red
from Moscato
wine, red
wool, for my
stillborn
brother
red with the
monster, now
inside
in our family,
the heir wears
red wool
ruffles
blessed be
but I crowned
myself, with
a wreath of
peonies
My sweet, my
insanity
lies in peony
wreaths and
watercress
tufts
not in the angry
willowtree of
welts
father carved
in
me
nor in the
porcelain
Buddha
that smashed to
smithereens
as the old man, with
bald spots, and
garlic
breath
shoved me
down, on
his aisle of
little
crotches
smelling like
daffodils
and an old
photograph of a
buck naked
ukulele
lady,with
blackbeetle
nipples,
smoking
Havana
how I wanted to be her
‘You’re a whore’
he
whispered,
his white hands
poking
down my
tadpole legs
and I believed him
Previously published on: Poems by Ritoshree Chatterjee with Illustrations from Subarnarekha Pal — Plato’s Caves online (wordpress.com)
