Vandana Parashar

Escape

It was a nasty fight. I just wanted to get out of the house. You might think I’d wander around, sit quietly by the lake or a pond and contemplate. Take some “cooling-off” time. But, instead, I go to buy groceries.

moonless night
it's a house
not a home

Lately, this has become a pattern. I’m angry, I clean the house. I’m sad, I do grocery shopping. I’m lost, I start organising cupboards. I didn’t realise when everything became a chore for me and the saddest thing is that now being happy has become a chore too.

fragmented dream
my brokenness
unexplained

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About the Author

Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (Moth Orchid Press) in 2019, and her second chapbook, Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in 2022.

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