My knees still echo
with the prayers I mouthed as a girl,
beneath quilts that smelled
like mothballs and turmeric-drenched fears.
No one warned me
that the spine remembers grief
like a second language—
spoken only when I sleep on my side
and dream in static.
I once tried to unbutton my shadow.
It laughed,
said I stitched it too tightly
to my mother’s sighs.
I keep
half a lullaby in my clavicle—
the other half,
buried in a cracked soap dish
in a bathroom
where no one knocks anymore.
The body forgets nothing.
It files heartbreak between molars,
carries anxiety in its elbows,
and folds shame neatly
under the tongue
like a crushed hibiscus petal.
Every mirror asks me
what part of you is still yours?
And I say—
just the dust that gathers
on my name when I don’t speak it.
Even silence
has a noise threshold.
Mine hums
like a lightbulb too tired to die.
Devika Mathur is an Indian poet, writer, and founder of Olive Skins. Author of Crimson Skins, her work has appeared in The Alipore Post, Madras Courier, Pif Magazine, and more. She explores surreal themes and has contributed to various international journals and anthologies.