The sterile hours | Sreedhari Desai

the sterile hours

you always hit me with
“no one wants to hear your life story,”
like it’s a joke,
like it’s a napkin
you wipe your mouth with
and toss.

but today
i’m going to do it anyway.

because if i don’t pour this somewhere
it’ll sit in my throat
like wet plaster
and one morning
nothing will come out
but dust.

the holidays are the worst…
not the lights,
not the songs,
not the forced smiles
and the casseroles
and the errands.

it’s the hours.

all day with him.

not just evenings…
when he’s tired enough
to be almost human…
but the whole long stretch,
the daylight,
the polite silence
that smells like disinfectant.

sterile.
airless.
correct.

the kind of quiet
that teaches you
you’ve been living inside a box
you helped decorate
because everyone said
this is what a good woman does.

before the surgery
i’d started to surrender.

fine, i thought.
this is it.
be good.
be grateful.
be quiet.

then they cut me open
and i came back
and something in me
didn’t come back the same.

something meaner.
hungrier.
something that refuses
to cooperate.

it protests
against throwing this second chance
onto the fire
of tradition:

the obedient wife,
the proper mother,
the woman who becomes smaller
so the room stays comfortable
for everyone else.

i am tired.
tired in the marrow.

i will go mad
if i have to hear one more sentence
delivered in that flat voice…

each word
like a rule being recited,
each day
like a form filled out
in perfect handwriting
so nobody gets in trouble.

and the cruel joke is
he isn’t a “bad” husband.

no fists.
no screaming.
no shattered plates.

nothing dramatic
enough
to justify
my wanting to breathe.

he’s just…
not much of a husband.

not a companion.
not a refuge.

more like a planet
i’ve been orbiting
careful not to disturb the weather,
careful not to ask for warmth
that isn’t there.

the guilt used to eat like rats.
betrayal, even thinking.

but maybe it’s also betrayal
to stay chained
to a life
where i can’t fully speak,
can’t fully live.

i’ve given him sixteen-plus years…
beautiful years, yes,
but bought
with quiet compromises.

and now my bones say it:

enough.