That hug is no longer warm. It is simply the movement of the arms grasping me in a circle. My body against yours. Wood against wood. Stone against stone. Marble against marble.
That woman in a torn saree, a naked baby in arm and an open wound is just someone else. Breathes and eats. Bathes and washes. Cooks and sews. Starves and dies.
Hopelessness, helplessness and guilt survive in a vaccum. Like the hollow of a coconut. They pull down at me. Tuggin me down. I ache with their weight.
Heavy fog replaces thoughts. The head weighs down with the intensity of the blankness and experiences only that. Nothing penetrates either way.
Eyes shut not to a feeling of lightness that leads to sleep but only to open again in a few seconds. For when the lids come down it is haunted within