Fruit Plate

By Aradhya Saxena

I have learnt early on,

That my body is not my own,

Soft fingers straining towards broken glass,

A dwindling existence in purgatory; home.

My memory is blotchy,

burnt hands and boiled pasta,

giggling over creaking metallic slides in the dark,

Black hair blanketing me,

wrapped around my throat;

Bloody lips and fingertips,

Digging into collarbones.

Salty tears run over long fingers,

as they force pulpous strawberries down my throat,

sweet juice choking up my lungs,

until there’s no more.

(No more of the juice? Or me?

I can’t seem to remember)

They burn in indignant resistance,

the only organs fighting back in my empty shell of a body,

I have deserted me,

a collapsing star in an empty galaxy,

Rings of cartilage crush against hands larger than my face,

My lungs, they fight anyway,

Expanding, contracting, contracting.

Sickly sweet plum and glazed apricots,

stain my childhood bedroom walls,

Juice spilt on soft, clean cotton sheets,

Snot dribbling into fruit bowls.

Skin sticky, nectar dripping,

down my nose, my neck, over my eyes,

the insides of my thighs.

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

Carved cleanly out my chest,

Bones breaking and ribs snapping,

Beating organ pulled hastily out the cavity,

A tangled mess of torn arteries and veins left in its wake.

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

Pulled carefully with artful precision,

and an unwavering painful grip;

It is covered in sweet summer sugar,

and small, alive writhing things.

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

it sits delicately between the cherries and the plums,

A smear of bright red on impersonal white sheets,

crushed, fruit bits block every opening.

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

It is infested with maggots now,

soft rotting flesh and fruit,

permeate these halls.

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

my body on a honey-drizzled bed,

the last time I felt safe,

I was seven.

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

my soul in an empty haunted house,

I have left my heart in the fruit plate,

I am going to get it back now.