Grief is a Fish

Aekta Khubchandani

bone stuck between your teeth—that you have no idea about—making you 
bleed every time you chew, it seems nothing can stop the bleeding, 
this intolerance of pain, this pelting silence growing within your mouth 
and spreading, woven into stillness of sea on a murderous night 

when you witness birds falling from deep purple skies, you’re appalled 
as if by a wolf ’s glorious stare, a frog’s relentless croaking, one carnivorous 
wave folding over the other, the sea an animal, coming 
at you; still you’re washing your eyes with cold water, wiping dry 

as if it’s a dream wet with blood that can be healed with something 
as simple as water, the sun bends and pours itself, the white 
bathtub full of blinding light, overflowing till the bathroom is full 
and eating your skin, week after week, you only ache; all of this 

an afterthought your stomach is bloated with, when he threatened 
that he would commit suicide; after years of holding 
his sweaty hand even after the unescapable stench, the disgust 
of the boy he was, the atrocious man he could be, you hated 

everything—time lengthened and outlined wind-blown plants, 
seeds in the garden, food in bird feeders, a harvest moon, 
blue expanse of a broken sky, shattered plate and spilled whiskey, 
a dent in the wall of his bedroom, stolen money, weed and football 

shorts and hockey stick, it took the shape of his body, now empty, 
and yours together, a brutal confusion— your memory 
is like fallen hair on the floor when the windows are open 
and the storm is roaring; there is so much hair, you wonder 

where the floor had been, you begin sweeping, you marvel 
at the mirror, you want to see things beyond the surface of your face, 
whatever is hidden invisibly beneath; you wash your mouth again, 
empty it of blood, then out falls a red-blue fish, beautiful and alive

Aekta Khubchandani is a writer from Bombay. She is matriculating her dual MFA in Poetry & Nonfiction from The New School, where she works as a Readings Coordinator. She is a Teaching Assistant for Illustration students at Parsons School of Design. She is the winner of the Breakout Prize 2022 in Poetry, and The Baltimore Review’s Winter Contest. Her work is published in Tupelo Quarterly, Pigeon Pages, Entropy, Speculative Nonfiction, Passages North, and elsewhere. Her work is nominated for Best American Short Fiction, Best Microfiction, Best Essays list, and Best of Net (Poetry). She’s working on two hybrid books; and she aches to become water.