Exorcism
by Anushri Nanavati
It's November.
I've spent this year mapping out my veins,
Tracing the sickening blue ropes
Lashing me, noose pressed to my throat,
To a life I never wanted to live:
These breaths choked out, your ghost
Drawn in, unwanted, with each
Heave of sprained diaphragm.
I've spent bloated nights, blearily
Truncated by anomia, drowning
And deafening, eviscerated:
A finger, a waxen sickle, running
Along a hacking sneer of moon-binged
Blade, regurgitated, rusted with
Old blood, old blood, old, old, old
Blood, dried blood, cold blood.
Dead blood.
I've spent these words chalking out
Death plans, paracetamol and diphen
Hydramine, the precise overdose,
Scrawling out rope lengths, nine feet
To be safe (oh the irony) and the right
Knot—the one thing that won't come undone;
Eight floors up, jump, not fall, there's
A comfort in certainty, the one thing
That's bound to condone permanence
An end.
I've spent these days ripping out my veins,
Stripping skin from bones, everything
And anything you ever touched:
I've tried, and it's not enough.
Anushri Nanavati is a poet and the founder of Haiku & Hymns in Ahmedabad, India, where she teaches creative writing, literature, psychology, history, and foreign languages. She has recently published her second poetry collection titled, "Birds, Bones, & Melancholia," based on her mental health journey so far.
