Chapter 10

 I have lost everyone. My bitterness, my anger — they pushed away those I once held dear. My husband has left me, unable to bear the weight of our fractured bond. My children, tired of the storms I create, have distanced themselves. Now, I stand alone in this silence, confronting the emptiness I brought upon myself. In this solitude, I poured my pain into words — this poem is the echo of a heart abandoned, a soul wrestling with the consequences of its own making.

Poem:

You have been lying all these years...

You were the witness to my silent tears....

Telling me the stories that were so fake...

Believing you was not the right crack to take....

Now as I stand alone at the crossroad..

It was a fool’s paradise which you offered me as abode.

The breathers that I sheltered in are so suffocating now,

The burden of this reality is all I have to tow...

The smile you gave that danced on my mind..

Has now started to gradually unwind.

You tried putting very little ice on an unending fire ..

No thank you for your placebo...

Oh, Hope! You are such a big liar..

Reading these words, I feel the weight of a woman broken by her own bitterness and sorrow. The loneliness she endures is not just from others leaving, but from the wounds she inflicted on herself. Yet, even in this raw confession, there is a deep truth — a warning about the danger of clinging to false hopes and the necessity of facing painful realities. Her poem is a mirror to all who have loved and lost, who have trusted and been betrayed, and who now stand alone, questioning everything they once believed.

— Amita Joshi