Sati by Sadhana Puri

Plastic googly eye accoutrements

glued onto the sea of faceless white saris

Their tears

cheer me on as I waltz towards

The End.

I expect to feel Something,

Anything

roll down my stone cheeks

but instead

I feel a stillness

like none other I’ve felt before.

This time

it’s on the inside.

They murmur with their invisible tongues,

“Why did she stop crying?”

And I wonder the same.

The Tears!

Where could they have gone?

Did they evaporate already?

I swear I felt them on my face,

just a few minutes ago before I confronted

My Reality.

But don’t you worry about me.

I manage to manufacture the water.

They say only our kind are capable of such deeds.

The “dreamless.”

In other words,

We Women.

I remember the dreams I used to have.

Hell, the Dreams I still have.

The Dreams of potions

stirring in the cauldron of my Mind,

Dreams of the ways the tiny particles meet.

I’d like to think

they treat one another with respect.

Maybe those particles are The Solution.

Outlandish!

Preposterous!

Inconceivable!

Thought melts away

as the embers graze against my Skin.