the bluff

 

she used to say it like a proverb
the way women do
when they’re tired
and still have dinner to make.

“stubborn like a mule.”
not like…
as if i had hooves
hidden under my socks,
as if my skull was built for load-bearing,
as if “no” was my native language.

in her village in india
the mules got taught what’s what, she said.
they’d pierce the nose,
thread a rope through it,
and suddenly the animal
understood the world’s favorite lesson:
direction.

pull here, life goes there.
pull harder,
dreams stop kicking.

and she’d look at me…
not angry, not even mean,
just that practical kind of love
that thinks it’s saving you
from the cliff your heart keeps jogging toward.

“you need something similar,” she’d say.
“stop thinking about running away.
stop following your heart.
tow the line.”

tow the line…
like my spine was a cart,
like my breath was a debt.
i kept my mouth shut for years,
swallowed my small rebellions
like fishbones.

i learned how to nod
without surrendering.

but one day i got tired
of being a metaphor
in my own house.

one day i said,
okay.
let’s do it.

​

i said it calmly,
which is how the truly dangerous things are said.

i called her bluff the way a match
calls paper’s bluff.

“come,” i told her.
“atta market.
we’ll go to the jeweler.
you can watch.”

she didn’t believe me.
a mother doesn’t want to believe
her child can become
the knife and the wound
in the same afternoon.

still…
she matched my stride.
boldly, like pride
wearing a sari.

on the way
we passed mules.
real ones.
tied by ropes to their tethers,
heads angled down
like they’d accepted the terms
of being alive.

their noses looked like punctuation marks
in a sentence someone else wrote.
a dot you can tug on.
a place the world can grab.

my mother gestured at them
like evidence.
see?
see how it works?

and i watched them breathe
and i thought:
they’re not stubborn,
they’re just trying to keep
their own name.

at the jeweler’s
it smelled like metal and waiting.
glass cases.
gold that looked like trapped sunlight.

men who don’t ask why,
only how much.

i said i wanted it done.
the words came out
clean as a signature.

they brought out a piercing gun.
my mother laughed…
a little…
the way you laugh
when you’re sure the floor
will keep being a floor.

then the gun went wham
and the nail went inside my nose
and the world narrowed
to a hot white point
of consequence.
for a second
everything was simple:
flesh, blood, breath.
a new kind of quiet.

and in that moment
i saw the blood drain from her face…
motherly face,
suddenly just a face,
pale,
ready to faint,
as if love had stepped too close
to the edge of itself.

her eyes searched me
like she was looking
for the child she’d been arguing with,
the one she could still scold
back into safety.

but i was standing there
with my new little ring of pain,
and i wasn’t triumphant.
i was something worse:
right.

i wondered at my cruelty…
how easy it is
to become the lesson
you hate.

how quickly you can hurt someone
without meaning to,
just by proving you can.

the rope she’d imagined
never appeared.

no one pulled me anywhere.
but i felt it anyway…
in the room,
in her wobbling breath,
in the space between us
where an invisible tether
tightened.

i wanted to say,
i’m sorry.
i’m sorry i made it literal.
i’m sorry i used my own body
as a dare.

i wanted to take it back
like you take back a harsh word,
like you take back a night
that changed the house.
but regret doesn’t rewind.
it just sits beside you
and watches.

outside, the market kept going…
vendors shouting,
coins clinking,
mules standing in the sun
with their quiet, dragged commas.

and i walked home with her,
blood dried at the edge of my nose,
my mother a little slower now,
 

and me…
stubborn as ever…

finally understanding
what it costs
to refuse the rope.

not the pain.
pain is cheap.

the cost is the face you love
turning pale
when you show them
you can’t be led.

​​

© Sreedhari Desai