Hairline Fracture Poem by Pratikshya Satapathy

I am manufacturing a life.
That's the most accurate word for it.
Manufacturing.

Degrees.
Ambitions.
Perfect hair in photographs.
Careful casual laughter in rooms full of people I don't love.
I am assembling a woman
piece by expensive piece.

It's for a future accident.
Some stupid Tuesday
when the universe trips over itself
and drops you in front of me again.
A crosswalk.
A café line.
A train platform that smells like rain and metal.
You'll look up.
And there I'll be.
Alive in ways you didn't allow me to be.
Prettier.
Calmer.
Successful enough that the air around me
feels expensive.
And for a second
your face will do that small thing-
that microscopic fracture
where regret sneaks in.
That moment.
That's what I'm killing myself for.
Do you understand how deranged that is?
I wake up every morning
and build a better version of myself
like I'm renovating a house
for a guest
who already left.
I tell everyone its for me.
God, I say it so convincingly
I almost believe it sometimes.
But you never left the room.
You are still sitting somewhere
in the center of my chest
like.. like a bullet
my body decided
to grow around.

Every plan I make
has your ghost in the blueprint.
Every success I collect
is secretly addressed to you.
Look.
Look what you threw away.
Look what you could have had.
But here's the grotesque part.
If you actually came back,
if one night you knocked on my door
with that stupid tired voice
and said my name like you used to,
I would stomp the degrees,
the careful independence at you.
In my beautiful little empire of self-respect,
I'm waiting to reject you.

Only the sick part is,
Even in that fantasy
where your eyes widen
and your chest tightens
and you finally realize-
There too,
I am not free.