By: Somrita Urni Ganguly

And everytime I heard that song,
I could see you next to me,
hear your voice,
feel your breath,
sense your whispering passion.

And so I stopped listening to that song;
stopped looking for your smell in the wind;
stopped waiting for you to return;
stopped thinking of your lies;
stopped abusing you for going back to her;
stopped cursing you for never really being mine;
stopped chanting your name while counting my rosary.

And tonight when you talked to me after that unquiet sabbatical
when you told me that now you miss her,
that every time you hear that song,
you see her next to you,
hear her voice,
feel her breath,
sense your whispering passion for her,
and miss her,

miss her so much that you need to stop listening to that song;
stop looking for her smell in the wind;
stop waiting for her to return,

tonight when you told me that you go through inferno,
I finally came out of my hell hole.
Tonight, I can hear that song again.
Tonight, and every night, hence forth.
Because tonight you will know how it feels to be in hell.
Tonight, and every night henceforth.

***

(The writer has completed her Master of Arts from the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, last month and is presently reading a biography on Marquis de Sade.)