To the wall, a shoulder

I bite down,
Hard and tight into my thumb .
I bite till they throb.
I swap for the blanket shading my shaking body,
Chew it up,
In a desperate attempt to not let my wails and tears clutched by transient sorrows,
Echo into the night.
The soul beside me needn’t see my tear-streaked face.
I let the wall be a witness.
The plain cracking wall,
An age-old wall that has witnessed this and more.
My sorrows etched into it in tiny scribbles.

I twist my ears for a change,
Twist them hard till they hurt,
A watching sob escapes my throat
I bite into my blanket again.
Wet from the tears and the spittle.

The lush green pastel pillow covers have a song to sing,
The matching bed sheets have a tale to tell,
The stinking blanket thick enough to smother, has many a poem of smothered emotions to pen.
I wash them all,
Give them a new lease of life,
Once in a while.
A relief from the dreaded sorrows – transient they are –
they witness every glistening night.

But the wall stands straight and still,
Unmoved, unrelenting.
Stoic, like a statue.
It has a tale to tell you too,
An age-old tale,
Everyone’s tale,
But a tale nonetheless –
of a soul who searched far and wide,
For a shoulder to rest her woes on.

None she found,
In Henry’s labyrinth of sniffles and sobs and smiles,
Everyone enacting a colour-film in their black and white lives,

Every soul biting into its thumb,
Twisting its ears,
Soaking the blankets.

So did she.

Everyone’s tale.
The wall and wails a witness –
A shoulder too saturated to shower comfort-
To the love she nestled,
In a whimpering heart,
That faltered and faded,
And fastening into her soul all along.

Poem by Maple (M.M)

Artwork by Sanjana Acharya