It's been 4 hours since my boyfriend of four years packed up and left our shared home. We were in the middle of redoing this room. I was deciding what to keep and what to throw away. He took half of the throwaway pile with him.
It's been four hours. I'm lying on the bed we shared for four years. I'm talking to a boy I gave a sloppy blow job to five years ago because there wasn't anything better to do that evening and he was kind of tall. A whole year before I met the man I thought was endgame. His voice comes out of my headset straight into my ears and I think how intimate the act of speaking directly into someone's ears would be once upon a time. Even thirty years ago he would have seen me reread the poems my ex wrote me but now he does this and I wonder how one lets go of someone they once considered more precious than the stars and the moon and the sun.
I tell the man in my ears that I don't understand the phrase “I don't want to do this” he agrees “if you don't want to then don't?”
I am now reading a piece where I told him that I think the world's primary promise to me is that it'll listen as I go on and on about him (I’m a much better writer in hindustani) after he tells me nobody hears me but him.
In an hour the man in my ears tells me he has to go but he'd love to know if I would like to resume what we had.
This is the second time he's asked in one year.
I'll see.
The man in my ear leaves and I am now on his side of the bed looking onto mine.
***
It's been two days now. A boy got me roses. I thought he was a friend. They're red.
He'd called me one in a poem. He's back in his city.
I wonder if I've ever seen roses growing there. I know his backyard has paarijaat because he sent me a picture of them. I know he loves the hibiscus his mother grows. There must be periwinkles around him. Periwinkles can grow anywhere. But are there roses?
My father with his green thumb tried growing roses 7 times. Six times they died. The seventh plant survived but it never had flowers until one day. The flower burnt to a crisp in the hot sun two days after it bloomed. My father's city isn't far from his.
They're neighbors.
***My landlord asks me where he's gone. I tell him he'll be back. He's home. Not here? No. He's home.
But he'll be back.
It's been a week.
I am attempting to clean. I sort through my things sitting next to an empty box across the mirror in his wardrobe.
I look like my father when I'm sad.
I'm sorting through my things. Three of his kurtas lay on my lap. I'd stolen them from him when the weather was too hot to wear anything else. His friend told me they look a lot better on me. I have the shoulders for them.
I look so much like my father.
I'm unbearably cold right now. I've never been this cold.
My phone buzzes and I see a man telling me I'm beautiful.
Does he know I look like my father?
He asks me if I want to grab dinner.
I'll see.
I look down into the box. I find nothing but time.
***The Ganga flows behind his house. He can see her from his balcony. It's the only part of his house he's ever shown me. One of Ganga’s distributaries flows behind my father's home. I would sneak out to its banks to write. There I once wrote about a man who’d call me rose.
Our home is in the middle of the city. No rivers flow here.
Delhi's only river is on its last legs. A friend thinks she'll dry up in ten years. I think she'll thrive on climate change. I think she'll swell and swell and swell until she's the city and the city is her.
Countless men will die but Jamuna would prevail.
He thinks I'm crazy.
I've never been wrong about rivers before.
***
I'm talking to the man from my ear. He's asking me what I do for work. I tell him I translate misery across four languages. I'm hoping I can do 7 soon.
He tells me he believes in me.
I tell him translating misery requires more skill than translating a poem.
It's been ten days. I am drinking wine I didn't know I had.
He asks me if I'd like to resume what we had. I tell him I'll have to see. I have decided to translate the section where shantanu wonders why ganga never comes to him. He wonders if she doesn't like him. Translating misery is harder than translating poetry. This is miserable poetry.
He tells me calendars can be organized. I told him sure.
In Saraladas' transcreation of the mahabharata Ganga hates Shantanu and she kills seven of the six of their kids. Shantanu saves the eighth child and frees her of him.
I see my reflection in the wine glass. A spitting image of the man.
***
I'm sitting next to a man who's telling me about his childhood. It sounds quite similar to mine. We spent it in similar places. I almost went to his city for high school but my father didn't let me. I tell him as much.
It's been two weeks since he's been gone. I am wearing sweats outside.
I've never done that. I've never done that. I've never done that.I'm wearing sweats outside our house. The man next to me tells me he can't tell.
I need to change. I tell him I have friends coming over and I need to clean.
I ask if he wants to come over. He does.
Ganga spares Bhishma and is freed from the marriage.
I've always done this to punctuate a breakup. This wasn't half bad.
He leaves and I'm on the bed looking at the roof. This is my bed now. That is my roof. I ask him if he's gotten home. He has. I put my phone on my table and continue to gawk at my roof.
My phone continues to buzz on my table. I lay on my bed in my home.

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