Anuja Mitra
Regarding the Girl Crying in the Library Bathroom
Weeping in public is rarely spontaneous.
I’d heard her equipping herself:
the securing of the lock,
the shuffling of feet.
When it came, the crying
seemed almost artificial,
like a recording.
Waves and waves,
a Wilhelm scream of sobbing.
Another woman unlocks her stall
the same time I do.
She glanced at me with a frown,
wondering if I was the mourner.
Both of us guilty
in our private annoyance.
Our distance from each other
in the most intimate of spaces.
Perhaps the girl did not want
to be interrupted.
Perhaps she did not want
to be all right.
Misery hates sympathy.
Better to be left alone
with heartbreak graffiti
and Lorde lyrics.
Weeping waters the soul
said the door of my stall.
Then get up and get over it.
Anuja Mitra would like to be writing more and stressing less. More of her work can be found in Signals, Sweet Mammalian, Mayhem and Three Lamps. She is co-founder of the new arts magazine Oscen and enjoys Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, petting her cats, and pretending to be cultured.