Choice

BY SUDEEP SEN

drawing a breath between each
sentence, trailing closely every word.
— James Hoch, ‘Draft’ in Miscreants

some things, I knew,

were beyond choosing:

didu — grandmother — wilting

under cancer’s terminal care.

mama — my uncle’s — mysterious disappearance —

ventilator vibrating, severed

silently, in the hospital’s unkempt dark.

an old friend’s biting silence — unexplained —

promised loyalties melting for profit

abandoning long familial presences of trust.

devi’s jealous heart misreading emails

hacked carefully under cover,

her fingernails ripping

unformed poems, bloodied, scarred —

my diary pages weeping wordlessly —

my children aborted, my poetry breathless forever.

these are acts that enact themselves, regardless —

helpless, as I am,

torn asunder permanently, drugged, numbed.

strange love, this is —

a salving: what medics and nurses do.

i live buddha-like, unblinking, a painted vacant smile —

one that stores pain and painlessness —

someone else’s nirvana thrust upon me.

some things I once believed in

are beyond my choosing —

choosing is a choice unavailable to me.