Three hours | Sreedhari Desai

Three hours

my heart was a cheap drum
kicked by a drunk in an alley,
and everybody kept saying
relax, it’s just a birthday party,

like words are a sedative
and time is a forgiving thing.

three hours.
that’s what they told me…
as if love clocks in and out
with a plastic name tag,
as if my ruin had a schedule.

it’s my only chance to see her
before she gets on that plane,
before she becomes a rumor
in a different country,
before the U.S. swallows her up
with its bright teeth and paperwork.

i want to stop her.
i want to keep her.
i want to fold her into my chest
and staple the world shut.

but the blood in my veins
is gushing like somebody hit a hydrant…
too fast,
out of control,
a whole parade of panic
with no permit.

so i do what a man does
when he can’t be a man:
i pop two Xanax in my dry mouth
like a prayer i don’t believe in,
wash it down with champagne,
then toss in four martinis
like extra nails
in the coffin.

there. much better.
the edge blurs.
the city softens.
the Uber carries me
like a body bag with a seatbelt,
and i practice my face
in the dark window…
normal.
harmless.
just another idiot
in a clean shirt.

i ring the doorbell
dull, dispassionate…
a small sound
for a large mistake.

her pretty face zooms in,
sharp as a photograph
you keep even after the breakup.
“You are late,” she says,
and it’s not anger
so much as bookkeeping.

inside, her fiancé’s voice…
from somewhere bright and smug…
asks her where the confetti is.

confetti.
little paper corpses
waiting to fall.

how i hate that man.
that Harvard-educated man
with his polished vowels,
with his clean hands,
whisking my love away
like she’s luggage
and he’s the only one
with the right tags.

as if she doesn’t have roots here.
as if she doesn’t have a past here.
as if she doesn’t rightfully belong
in my heart,
squatting there,
rent-free,
scuffing up the floors.

i hear voices in my head,
and they’re not even clever voices,
just blunt instruments:
he doesn’t belong with her.
he doesn’t deserve her.
he doesn’t look good alive.

the room is full of laughter,
gay candles,
glasses clinking like tiny alarms.

i drift toward the bookcase…
the one i assembled for her
with bleeding knuckles
and stupid devotion,
bolts tightened like vows.

the leatherbound books stare at me
with their gold spines,
and the letters seem to rearrange themselves,
forming a slow, crawling sentence:

~end it~~~~~~.
~~end it~~~~~.
~~~end it~~~~.

not her.
not him.
just the ache.
just the humiliation.
just the long, wet animal need
gnawing my ribs from the inside.

my hand touches the wood,
and the wood remembers.
every hour i spent building it,
every time she said thank you
like it meant something permanent.

i lean.
just a little.
like testing a wall
to see if it can hold you up.

someone yells,
“watch out!”
too late,
the way watch out is always too late…
a postcard arriving
after the house burned down.

the bookcase begins to move
in slow motion,
the way disasters do
when your brain is trying
to be kind.

first goes a toy ship
from the top shelf…
it slides like a joke
told badly,
and lands on him,
on his gelled hair,
a tiny vessel
making landfall on a smug continent.

and he…
oh, he slips aside.
with the lazy certainty
of someone who believes
things don't happen to him,
leaving my love behind
to take the full fury
of my thoughtless passion.

i see it all
as if i’m watching from underwater:
her head turning,
her eyes widening,
the half-smile…
that polite half-smile
people wear at parties
when they’re trying to be nice
to a ghost.

wood and weight
and gravity’s wordless verdict
come down on her.

the sound isn’t cinematic.
it’s just… final.
like an elevator sealing shut
with no one inside
to hold it.

they turn her over.

there’s surprisingly little blood,
as if even her body
refused to dramatize it,
as if it wanted to leave
cleanly.

but her soul is gone…
gone the way light goes
when the breaker snaps…
and the dark takes over like it owns the place.

and i stand there
with champagne breath
and pill-swallow regret,
a total wreck
needing to be stopped,
finally stopped,

and the party keeps breathing around me
for a second too long
before the screaming starts.

somewhere, far away,
an airplane is taking off anyway.