Dear Maa.

 Dear maa,

You are infuriated by my highly irregular sleeping routine the most. You said you wanted to buy me some sleeping pills. Didn’t I immediately say yes? Didn’t you see it in my eyes? The urge to gulp them down all at once instead of waiting for you to give me once a day. Didn’t you see the way I wanted to sleep and never wake up next to you not stroking my hair? Can’t you see maa? Its not like I cannot do this anymore, but I just don’t want to. I am a disappointment and I refuse to change. I wanted to be this mess. I wanted to be in this darkness. But it was also me who once decided to follow a light and crawl out of this dingy room. But it was YOU who kept pushing me back into it, unknowingly maybe.

I’ve learned a lot from you, you see. Now I keep pushing people away. People that I love. I’ve stopped confronting my emotions to them, and to myself.

No, stop calling me a tomboy, for once. It’s not that I’m lazy. I just don’t have the energy to wear makeup and pretense for Diwali and every day for that matter. NO, I’m not your 8-year-old anymore which celebrates Christmas when no one in the house does. I wasn’t sick or tired during new year’s eve, mom. But I didn’t lie either. I lacked energy. It just isn’t physical that I lack anymore.

And one day I overheard you calling depressed people crazy in a conversation with strangers because they throw things at people when they lose their mind. I was there, breaking down before I knocked on your door. I went to my room and threw your case of bangles across the floor. Did you hear the glass shattering? No, not of the bangles. My heart maa, my heart.

You came running in the direction of its silence. But I had already shut the door. And I don’t care if you yell

"One, two, three”

No I won’t open the door. This trick won’t work anymore.

One, two, three

I count the pieces of glass on the cold floor.

One, two, three

I’m picking them up now.

One, two, three

They aren’t welding together like the ‘building blocks’ you had gifted me when I was 8.

One, Two, three

I remember you kept them under the Christmas tree.

One, two, three

I count the seconds it would take to make up my mind.

One, two , three

I count the blood drops.

One, Two , three

But pills would’ve hurt less.

You should’ve bought them.

Right, maa?

One

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