Woman // Sarisha Kurup

​She spoons with old lovers on Friday afternoons between
two jobs she wears them like wings she
was somebody’s sister
somebody’s first love
somebody’s grand mistake
and naked under the evening sky she is God’s own creation and
               She doesn’t believe in God
she believes in the silences between words and
the breath that hovers on airborne whispers the
sweet taste of tragedy
 
Her first memory is her grandmother’s toothless smile but
she isn’t sure if it’s a memory or a dream
it doesn’t much matter
 
She chews gum like a champion behind
the drugstore counter but not the pink kind because
it always left a bitter taste and
she is somebody’s sister and somebody’s lover and somebody’s mother but
she isn’t anybody’s lost-cause-pink-bubblegum-chewing-big-breasted-bleach-blonde-one-night-fantasy
she’s going auburn tomorrow anyway
 
She doesn’t smoke cigarettes because
she’s afraid of smoke how it just
is
and then isn’t
and there is a beauty in transience
                                   but not in extinction.  


Sarisha Kurup