But Amma never listens | Fuzaila Khan

Some days, I screech the window panes
To uncover the deafening layers of my being.
On others, I scrape through my flesh
To allow the numbness to go away.
Some days, I scream on the roof
Till I cannot.
On others, I stab my ink on paper,
Knife on my skin.
But Amma never listens
To those screeching and stabbing sounds.
All she hears are words I never spoke
Because Amma never listens
To the passing away of my breaths
At the sight of strange faces,
And the touch of alien hands.
On some days, I break things,
I fight against what only I can see
On others, I break myself.
I give up on the thought of survival.
But Amma never listens
To the shattering sounds of
Either bricks or bones.
All she hears are forced laughs
And hollow words.

On some days, I bolt the door,
Feeling trapped in a body I no longer own.
On one, I freed myself
And slammed the door behind
To leave for places unknown.
But Amma never listened
To the cries, I did let out and
The days I did mourn.
Amma never listened.

Fuzaila KhanFuzaila is a final-year undergraduate student pursuing Literature at Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. She is interested in narrativizing the struggles of the marginalized through literature.