The Unbecoming Poem by Pratikshya Satapathy

If the world won't unravel,
then let me.
Let time bleed ink on my hours,
let now be a wound
that doesn't ask to heal.
The sky has no right to fall on me
when I lose someone.

Every object in this room
keeps a civil silence
as my insides rupture,
and I want to scream at the walls:
Don't you dare be the same shade
you were before.
Don't you dare hold me
like ordinary grief;
contain me only if you mean
to burst open,
to stain everything
the violent color of losing.

And if the world insists on holding,
let its arms be crooked,
one sleeve torn,
pockets full of keys that don't fit anything.
Contain me only if you'll invent
a new language of unraveling,
dripping from the wainscot,
pooling under doorways,
refusing to evaporate.