A Headache Holder by Praniti Gulyani
to say the very least –
I have a heavy head, and
with the stone that held Medusa, I will
carve a six-shelved
headache-holder and sprinkle
some starlight onto it, perhaps
I will pick my headaches off
my teenage-girl eyebrows, and place them
in the headache-holder
the meticulous bits of mother
in my heart, make me
arrange my headaches according to
shape and size and perhaps smell
I put the bigger ones
at the back, those coated
with perspiring layers of patience, picked
from that place between the eyebrows
and scraped off pillow-covers
with broken, yellowing nails
and then, I move –
onto the uncertain ones
those, that linger
between big and small
they squirm between
my fingers, as I scatter them around
the headache-holder putting some
at the back, some in the front
as they emit
short, sharp jerks
of bittersweet odor, picked
from the crest of my forehead
with quivering, unsure fingers
finally, I advance towards –
the smallest ones, that slither
like slippery, angry eels
and, as I struggle to tighten
my fists around them and place them
in the front, they slash my palms
with agonized, metallic tails
for they must be tucked into
frock-pockets, and threaded into
the underlying silences of a moment
they must not be put
on outstretched palms that face
even the sky
for they are pungent with football fields
and upturned socks and shoe polish
and ironed shirts and cigarette ends
and moldy sandwiches and shadows;
shadows that are lifted and slammed
against the frosty tiles of bedroom walls
shadows that are slammed and pushed
and slapped and stamped
and hurled
soundlessly
they are vibrant with the shades
of every thread, that embroiders
the extrinsic layers
of this tapestry called silence
carefully
concealing
what lies
inside
Praniti Gulyani, a seventeen year old girl from India. Twitter: @GulyaniPraniti