ecological amnesia

by Nuri Bhuiyan

night has come.

my back sinks into the plush bed sheets,

my stomach is full with my mother’s brown rice,

and my fingers smell of sweet golab jamun,

my body is at once affected by a delicious equilibrium of dense warmth from the

heater,

and slight cool breezes from my ceiling fan.

​

suddenly

I hear it,

as I have many times before,

so soft,

don’t you know?

the world is ending.

​

my insides begin to lull,

into waves that rise higher and higher, closer and closer.

​

a harsh reality floods me.

brown bodies scattered within and between borders,

backs bared to hard ground, shoulder blades warring the soil,

stomachs, empty, sunken and fingers that have forgotten how it feels to sink into a

plate of warm kichuri,

skin shivering in bitter colds, or perpetually suffocating in the dry heat

​

whispers maneuver my ears

there are too many of them to save

why don’t you help them

why don’t you fucking help them

I’m screaming

growling stomachs

children’s screams

a mother’s moan

my heart is pumping on the wrong beat

a relentless pressing grows behind my eyes

my heart erupts

my head is cracked open

my eyes are not closing

my eyes are not closing

my eyes are not closing

​

my eyes are not closing

​

the bed beneath me becomes ground

the whoosh of the fan the ruffle of a strange man’s clothing

the dark of my room the eerie depth of the night

I submit

my body is washed away

6am,

I wake up,

turn the heat up,

microwave last night’s leftover golab jamun for breakfast,

and go for a long drive.

it happens that night, and the next one, and the one after.

sleepless nights give way to peaceful sleep,

remembrance surrenders to forgetting.

​

​

​