I fell asleep to the chatters of cicadas on a quiet summer night;

Half indulged in a delirium, half a dreamless sleep–with an unutterable desire clung to my chest like a safety-pillow,

Let the nigend, let me sleep till then.

And yet,

I woke up at the crackling noise of a burning home,

The fire, reaching up to the ceiling with no escape doors left to carry myself out.

A home that I had once thought to be my own

Suddenly caught fire that night–and I packed no bags

And left no goodbye letters at the dining table,

Only a handful of freshly-cut apples and a jar full of my father's favorite cookies,

A bread with strawberry jam spread on it

And a last cup of tea in my father's big-old ceramic mug–I am sorry, for I can no longer carry on standing under the roof that you set on fire, pretending to be your perfect daughter

Who doesn't scream at the sight of a waking nightmare,

I can no longer carry on being in a burning home,

And consider myself as grateful for my failing health and a wrecked heart.

I am sorry, but I have forgotten what it feels like to be a daughter

Without having to prove my worth for it every once in a while,

And now I am an empty glass-jar that has nothing left to offer–I am sorry,

For I do not have the strength in me to burn any longer

Just to keep you warm.

So, I fell back into a deep, dreamless sleep,

To the sounds of stars falling over my head

Like bullets crashing over my wearisome bones,

Like flocks of migrating herons quietly dropping dead,

And after the end of an unfathomable winter, when I finally awake–the house was no longer burning.

There was nothing left to burn, nor to mend.

The tea has gone cold, the apples all rotten–the cookies eaten by fungus,

And the fungus spreading over my lungs.

I woke up to the sound of silence hovering over my room, with the sunlight

splashing over my face and the dragonflies fluttering over the blues.

Another winter has made its way to this home now–in between my crushed bones,

like a wretched memory of an unwanted childhood.

And I cannot tell if I have awakened from a long, lost dream

Or am I still dreaming of a yet-to-be-found life?

I cannot decide if the war is over yet, and whether the fire has finally been put out.

I can no longer tell the difference between all the befores and afters of survival.

And whether I am safe once and for all without catching up to a burning home again.

All that I can truly think of is this–what about after all this survival?

What do I do with all this grief? Where do I put it? Where do I bury it?

Tell me, father, what do I do with the memories of once-a-burning-home clung to my throat?

Where shall I bury the remnants of a home that no longer exists?

Where shall I bury myself?

Maliha Tribhu is currently an undergraduate majoring in Marketing at the University of Dhaka. During her leisure hours, she likes to talk to moths and plants and soak under the winter sun.