Choice

drawing a breath between each
    sentence, trailing closely every word.
         — James Hoch, ‘Draft’ in Miscreants
1.
 
some things, I knew,
                              were beyond choosing:
 
 
didu — grandmother — wilting
                                        under cancer’s terminal care.
 
 
mama — my uncle’s — mysterious disappearance —
                                      ventilator vibrating, severed
silently, in the hospital’s unkempt dark.
 
 
an old friend’s biting silence — unexplained —
   promised loyalties melting for profit
                            abandoning long familial presences of trust.
 
 
devi’s jealous heart      misreading emails
                                                     hacked carefully under cover,
her fingernails ripping                             
unformed poems, bloodied, scarred —
                                           my diary pages weeping wordlessly —
my children aborted, my poetry breathless forever.
 
 
2.
 
these are acts that enact themselves, regardless —
    helpless, as I am,
torn asunder permanently, drugged, numbed.
 
 
strange love, this is —
                                           a salving: what medics and nurses do.
i live buddha-like, unblinking, a painted vacant smile —
                            one that stores pain and painlessness —
someone else’s nirvana thrust upon me.
 
 
some things I once believed in
                                                        are beyond my choosing —
choosing is a choice unavailable to me.

Copyright Credit: Copyright © 2014 by Sudeep Sen. Permission granted by the author.