Potato Head

I recall the way I got cross every time you called me ‘potato head’.
Those memories elicited different emotions from me over the years.
At first, reminiscing the past only welled my eyes to brim.
No, they weren’t tears of sorrow.
They were tears of indignation,
tears of seething, apoplectic wrath,
to think that you could leave me to get married off to some man.
And over the days the anger turned into a sensation of betrayal.
You renegaded an 8 year old child.

Your mere photo was enough to make my heart ache for a day.
And when I noticed my memories of you were beginning to fade away,
I was finally delighted.
My busy mom brought in a substitute maid the moment you left
- the shrewd woman she always has been.
But I remained aloof to the myriad of maids that came and left.
One lesson was sufficient to teach me how noxious attachment was.

But I cannot deny that I still marvel those moments,
the time when my first tooth fell out for instance.
I cried for a day with the string around my loose tooth,
not letting anyone near my blanket made booth.
You coaxed me into your lap with the promise of ice-cream
and swooshed the tooth away with my ear piercing scream.
Blood dribbled down the vacant spot to your tangled coarse hair
as I buried my head into the nape of your neck.
I wrapped the fallen tooth in crumpled tissue paper
and left it under the bed just as you said,
for the Wise Rats to receive my offerings and grant me snow white teeth like theirs.
Thanks to you, my disproportionate rat teeth needed braces and repairs.

And when I was four you left for your village in Chittagong
to bury your father under the rocky mounds.
I cried everyday thinking you were a freak, awaiting your pledged arrival at the end of the week.
My vexed little self resolved to quit speaking, to punish you for your abrupt forsaking.
But when you stepped in through those barred gates,
with the shabby burgundy shawl wrapped around your ribs,
my deceiving legs took me to a sprint and I succumbed myself into the warmth of your lap.
The sour scent of your cheap lotion, your musty perspiration,
exonerated you from your guilt.

And when you left for the final time,
the neighbors passing you envelopes to prosper your conjugal life,
I slipped the kitchen knife and furrowed the back of your scruffy rucksack,
and was dexterous enough to make it look like a rat gnaw mark.
And when you approached me with your new backpack slung over your shoulder,
kissed me, cupped my cheeks, promised me a call every day,
my lips lay in a flat line, and I finally had to resign.

After three decades, when your phone is dead, and my fallacious emotions seem farcical to me,
I stand before you, your thatched mud house,
your half naked grandchildren, your flyspecked cows.
I notice the bewilderment in those sagging eyes, your ever coarse hair in their grey layers.
I embrace you and sniff in the sour scent of your cheap lotion, your musty perspiration.
Your rigid body doesn’t recognize your potato head.

I recall the way I got cross every time you called me ‘potato head’.
Those memories elicited different emotions from me over the years.
At first, reminiscing the past only welled my eyes to brim.
No, they weren’t tears of sorrow.
They were tears of indignation,
tears of seething, apoplectic wrath,
to think that you could leave me to get married off to some man.
And over the days the anger turned into a sensation of betrayal.
You renegaded an 8 year old child.

Your mere photo was enough to make my heart ache for a day.
And when I noticed my memories of you were beginning to fade away,
I was finally delighted.
My busy mom brought in a substitute maid the moment you left
- the shrewd woman she always has been.
But I remained aloof to the myriad of maids that came and left.
One lesson was sufficient to teach me how noxious attachment was.

But I cannot deny that I still marvel those moments,
the time when my first tooth fell out for instance.
I cried for a day with the string around my loose tooth,
not letting anyone near my blanket made booth.
You coaxed me into your lap with the promise of ice-cream
and swooshed the tooth away with my ear piercing scream.
Blood dribbled down the vacant spot to your tangled coarse hair
as I buried my head into the nape of your neck.
I wrapped the fallen tooth in crumpled tissue paper
and left it under the bed just as you said,
for the Wise Rats to receive my offerings and grant me snow white teeth like theirs.
Thanks to you, my disproportionate rat teeth needed braces and repairs.

And when I was four you left for your village in Chittagong
to bury your father under the rocky mounds.
I cried everyday thinking you were a freak, awaiting your pledged arrival at the end of the week.
My vexed little self resolved to quit speaking, to punish you for your abrupt forsaking.
But when you stepped in through those barred gates,
with the shabby burgundy shawl wrapped around your ribs,
my deceiving legs took me to a sprint and I succumbed myself into the warmth of your lap.
The sour scent of your cheap lotion, your musty perspiration,
exonerated you from your guilt.

And when you left for the final time,
the neighbors passing you envelopes to prosper your conjugal life,
I slipped the kitchen knife and furrowed the back of your scruffy rucksack,
and was dexterous enough to make it look like a rat gnaw mark.
And when you approached me with your new backpack slung over your shoulder,
kissed me, cupped my cheeks, promised me a call every day,
my lips lay in a flat line, and I finally had to resign.

After three decades, when your phone is dead, and my fallacious emotions seem farcical to me,
I stand before you, your thatched mud house,
your half naked grandchildren, your flyspecked cows.
I notice the bewilderment in those sagging eyes, your ever coarse hair in their grey layers.
I embrace you and sniff in the sour scent of your cheap lotion, your musty perspiration.
Your rigid body doesn’t recognize your potato head.