“You’d be a good mom,” he said,
just like that,
somewhere between the fourth shot of vodka
and the second ashtray fill of the night.
The music at the bar was blaring
but those words rang through my bones.

And suddenly,
I wasn’t drunk anymore.
The words kept circling
splitting, fusing, spilling
in all different routes,
but the same current underneath.

I started filling in the blanks
He sees beyond the clutter
the mess, the undone laundry
He must think I’m not too much.
I’m soft enough to hold a child
but strong enough to raise one.

Maybe the stains on my past
aren’t that clotted after all
Maybe the scars are skin now
He sees me
not just as a lover,
but as a home.
And I looked at him,
with a fragile hope
wanting him to say it again
but louder, clearer,
confirmed with a plan and a time and a promise.

Instead, he lit a cigarette.
And leaned back like
nothing had changed.

---

A. V. Anjali is a writer and spoken word artist based in Tallinn, Estonia. She travels around Europe performing her spoken word sets at slams, curated, and featured shows. You can follow her work here: https://www.instagram.com/anjali.menon.av/