FIRST CRACK | Where did the first crack in the frosted glass come from? Oshin Padhye’s poem explores the origins of violence.
by Oshin Padhye
Where did the first crack in the frosted glass come from?
The obvious answer is the side of my fist
which is now dripping blood faster
than I have ever seen blood flow
from my body.
But perhaps it began somewhere else;
in a stray word from my mother
that carried itself on the smoke
that seeps into every corner
of our sunlit house.
Perhaps it wound itself around
a particularly sensitive mental protrusion of mine;
settling down inside my brain,
making its way through the urge to rip my face off,
through the layers of fat in my arm,
coming to rest in my fist.
Or maybe the first crack rests
in my mother’s body,
passed down to her by
an overprotective pair of parents
and the impassive pain
of having to exist as a woman.
Oshin Padhye | @OshinTheO | this-is-where-i-write-things.tumblr.com
Oshin is a 24-year-old female-identifying human being who, like most people, does not know where she is headed. She has recently completed a Master’s in creative writing and the one thing that she does know is that she has to continue to improve her writing.