And I sit by my grief and nurse it like a sick child. The days are grey and the nights long, and the inside of my body aches- with people and places and childhood, an amalgamation of a life lived. There is grief where there is life, there is grief where there is love. It’s a reminder, a keepsake, a fridge magnet. There are boxes in my heart which I open on rainy nights; there are gorges where my grief runs swift, meadows where it’s quiet. It comforts me and chokes me- dichotomy of a life lived, of love. It rains a lot now and I sit by my grief.
-Ritika Jyala, an excerpt from the Flesh I Burned





















