A Bed of Fallen Leaves/Kamalika Bhattacharya

A Bed of Fallen Leaves

Kamalika Bhattacharya

No one knows

when breaking truly begins.

One morning it simply does—

fallen leaves beneath the tree

look different.

They were there yesterday,

the day before too—

yet today they are no longer just leaves.

They are discarded days,

unused nights,

drafts of words

never spoken.

I bend to gather them.

The roughness against my palm

awakens an unexpected tenderness.

What began as mere cleaning

quietly turns into care.

An untidy heap

unknowingly becomes a bed.

I thought

they would be fuel.

Winter is coming—

not outside,

but inside my chest.

I needed fire.

Leaves would burn,

light would rise,

and in that glow

one last time

a face.

Faces always look beautiful

in firelight—

even when burning,

they shine.

But the fire did not catch.

Instead,

the leaves released a scent

like night-blooming jasmine.

No jasmine was there,

yet something intoxicating lingered.

Not everything wants to burn.

Some things,

before burning,

demand a body.

🍂

Soft—soft—

through the whispering sound

the bed of leaves

ceases to be a bed.

Not warmth—

this is an embrace,

a nameless claim.

Below, in the dark soil,

roots pull at roots.

The earth seems to say:

This far. No more.

That is when one understands—

breaking does not happen above ground.

It begins beneath,

where roots learn

to let go of each other.

From afar comes the sound of water—

splash… splash…

At the riverbank

someone washes hands and face.

An ordinary person.

At day’s end

they return home.

Their bed is not made of fallen leaves.

They have a river—

where fatigue can be washed away.

I have no river.

I have only a dry branch.

On that dry branch

I arrange moonlight—

with great care.

So the light hurts no one.

So no one notices

that this glow

is merely an attempt

to cover a wound.

Some faces

are not meant to be seen—

only avoided.

Some beds

are not meant to be slept in,

only left behind.

That night,

no fire burned.

Only moonlight settled

on the fallen leaves—

silent,

still.

The breaking ended that day.

The rest of life

was only

learning how to step aside.