sweet scented lilies, soup and music by Tanvi Nagar (16, India)

I.
We strung together the sweet scented lilies with perfection
and created an infinite symphony while playing your favourite melodies.
After all, they were the reason we met, and lived together for all this time
and the lilies--your lilies—had the scent of the countless nights 
and mornings we spent with each other under the spotless sky.
The red, blue and green lines on the screens fluctuated freely 
tirelessly racing rhythmically—as if creating their own music. 
The aroma of light-yellow coloured lamb soup escaped from the bowl
as if racing to reach the square white ceiling of the hospital first.
It contained pieces of what used to be alive, now slipped far away;
isn’t this the story of what was unfolding beyond the surface of your eyelids?

---

II.
My glassy eyes, fixed upon the skeleton before me—bones, flesh and a little bit of you,
encased in a coffin of peachy pale skin and numerous twisted tubes;
the incisions in your skin fresh—with small red droplets of blood that oozed out
made my heart beat faster; fluttering like a kite in the sky before its string is cut.
The skin in your hands and feet hung loose and lifeless
which made it harder to imagine how blood was gushing underneath this sheet,
there was so much movement in the molecules of your being 
yet so much stillness in the spirit of your existence.
Your eyelids were shut closed, concealing the gateway to your universe within,
like the white sheet that covered the scars the sharp needles left on your body.

III.
It was hard to imagine the life of a human, so powerful yet dangerously delicate--
hanging on the monitors, meters, measures.
It was harder still to imagine what pulling the plug from a socket 
can do to the one hanging on it like threads of loose cloth ripped at the ends.

IV.
The lilies danced in farewell, to some sad song it seemed,
the monitors beating slower, slower and slower still 
with their constant repeating beat- beep.
The waves resounded and repeated
until the notes on the screen
refused to go up and down 
and the fumes from
the soup didn’t 
escape at 
all. 

​