Half-Formed
Sreeja Naskar

it’s your twenty-first birthday, and
you’re reading louise glück on the sofa.
i watch you from the window i’m standing
against, my large shadow curling around
your barefeet. there are so many words
swirling inside my mouth, almost there

between my lips, almost out in the paper-thin

air. there’s so much i want you to say back
to me right now, but you’re only panting
at the page you’re reading, perhaps panicked

by the sudden exposure to sun-bleached “love.”

i make you pumpkin muffins for your
breakfast as you make a quick call to your
mother. “thanks, mom.” smile. “yes, i’ll
make sure to pay for those today.” sigh.
i wonder if you ever want to yell at her
in the top of your voice, almost damaging
your vocal cords, just to say everything

you’ve had buried under the folds of your skin.

a beautifully abandoned childhood,
the first cry of a home you ran away from.

you cry when i take you out for dinner,
quiet sniffles stretching between the
gentle “ooh’s” of the Bon Iver song.
there’s a note i’ve written for you today,
that reads: “panic. but don’t die from it.”
i wanted to hand you that, but later
i found that to be immensely stupid.

you’ve always chosen death over doing anyway.

we eat pasta in the low light of the diner.
you smile at me through your sadness,
and suddenly everything i’ve wanted to

say to you grows teeth and spines and whatnot.

they don’t run out, instead, they nibble
on my skin, my fingertips, my heart.
i don’t want to ruin anything for you.

cold fingertips run through my left arm.
tears burn into the flowers on the pillow.
your cheeks are half-split pomegranates,
your sorrow so bright in the liquid moon.

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Sreeja Naskar’s Comments

This one was pure imagination—I wrote this after binge-watching Normal People late at night and feeling completely wrecked by how soft and brutal love can be at the same time. Even though I wasn’t writing about anyone real, it felt real in the way imagined things sometimes do. I remember being obsessed with the phrase “panic. but don’t die from it.” It came to me suddenly, and it felt both absurd and deeply honest. I’ve never actually handed that note to anyone, but it sums up how helpless we can feel when someone we care about is falling apart in slow motion.

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