There’s never too much space
to live in a house
you can’t call your own.
A kitchen window you can’t open
is much better than none at all.
You put out a fire,
then go to sleep,
you have to go to work tomorrow.
If the bulb in the bathroom flickers-
let it,
turn the tap on and put your head under it.
Don’t cover with paint
the wall which is stained,
wash with ink.
Leave the mirror behind the door so it breaks.
Leave a few pages torn off from your father’s diary.
Leave the verandah light on.
Leave new clothes and old shoes.
Leave something behind, even if it’s for a short time,
It is yours, was-
Leave.
Purnima is a final year student at The Department of Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of Delhi. She loves Dorothy Parker, Bo Burnham, and coffee- necessarily in that order. She also finds referring to herself in the third person extremely weird, after all, only Tia Ahuja from Remix can pull it off.
