WE BECOME MOTHER AND DAUGHTER AGAIN, NOT TWO WOMEN HOLDING LIFETIMES IN THEIR THROATS.

My mama pours the tea like she always does, with a little more sugar than needed, as if to make up for the bitterness elsewhere. It clinks softly in the cup. Outside, the sky has that familiar 5 p.m. hue, as if it, too, is trying to hold itself together.

She tells me, without warning, how her life went to waste. She just says it like she’s talking about the weather. It comes out warm. And ruins the tea.

I nod. Because what else does one do when someone quietly breaks their own heart in front of you?

She says things like, “I wanted to be something. Not this. Not just this.” And “Your naani once told me that a woman’s silence is a virtue. I was too good at being virtuous.” She doesn’t cry. She never does. I think she forgot how.

But the tea tastes different now. I drink it slowly. Let the heat hide the tears. Maybe that’s why she makes it hot enough to burn, so neither of us notice when it’s our grief that’s scalding our tongues. But my tears betray me. They slip down, silent, disappear into the rim of the cup. Maybe that’s why the tea always needs more sugar.

“I used to dream,” she says. “But then there were mouths to feed.” She tells me she wanted to study more, once. She tells me she used to write, once. She tells me she still dreams sometimes, but they wake her up in shame.

I want to cry for her. But she’s sitting so straight. Her dupatta is pinned perfectly. Her hands don’t shake. So, mine mustn’t either.

I want to say sorry, but I don’t say it. Instead, I ask, “Should I get those biscuits? The coconut ones you like?” She exhales, just a little. A small smile. “Yes, go on. They’d go nice with the tea.”

And just like that, we pack up our grief. We sip around it. We become mother and daughter again, not two women holding lifetimes in their throats.

The tray clinks. The biscuits break. The world spins on like we hadn’t just served our entire lives in porcelain.

MY ROOTS ARE BLEEDING DEEPER THAN MY LEAVES CAN SHOW.

I am a clock buried in salt.
My hands have stopped,
but the world keeps nudging me forward.
As if it refuses to accept that some hearts pause without dying.

 Last year, I told the wind I was becoming, growing.
Although growth never had a face that I recognized.
But the wind left before I could finish the sentence.
And stitched no wings to my back,
only stones to my chest.

I have been starving for change,
but maybe God feeds differently.
Maybe this isn’t stagnation.
Maybe I’m being buried
so the dead parts of me rot first,
and only what’s real survives the dark
Maybe I am a seed,
and the dirt is not delay,
but a necessary drowning.

I do not stretch toward the sun,
not yet.
I have no leaves to show for my survival.
But my roots are bleeding deeper,
and somewhere below language,
I am being taught endurance.

Because God does not always speak in thunder.
Sometimes, He teaches by staying quiet
long enough for us to hear the war
between surrender and resistance inside ourselves. 

And if I’m honest,
I still don’t know what He wants of me.
But I keep waking. I keep breathing.
And maybe that’s the holiest thing I’ve done all year.