It isn’t polite

 My mother grew up with silent tongues in a house she still divides between the in-laws and her own.  Brilliant, her words are the gales before a monsoon storm, what flight truly is: joyous. I am terrified of  becoming like you, who hides different versions of the same whole. How much longer than 21 years do  you need? It is not a home if you still feel the need to call it the kitchen ‘hers’ and not your own. These  silences teach me that sometimes joining them means beating yourself into submission, derelict and  wasted in your mind. This fear, this anger that you see comes from fear, mother. Terror that one day I will  be silent too long, and before long, I won't be the only one the beating myself up. It is a cruel irony of  sorts: my mother who never speaks at all, my father to roars his rage with every drive of his phone, his  free hand swords cutting down enemies in his path. You'd be surprised by the number of times I say  ‘hypocrite’ in a day, it seems like my parents can't help themselves. They taught me to be calm, quiet, the  perfect Indian trophy child, and for all of their efforts I cannot realize why they cannot see that I am only  doing what they told me to. Independence is a funny thing; no parent wants you to have too much of it.  Sometimes it’s easier for them to know that we'll come back crying with a scratch on our arms like we  used to. 

These dialects of respect and elderly stature haunt my ears, battling with every dagger that wants  hypocrisy to be realized by its wielders. Hatred is never given presence, only ghosted through flashes of  glances and curses muttered in the dying hisses of the pressure cooker. These hurricanes of exhaustion  think I'm their plaything, a wicked witch doll for them to drop houses on. God knows, I mutter curses  enough for the world to be riddled in warts. God knows, that despite how much I utter their name, I don't  believe in them. It comes easier now, like thinking of them as that sarcastic cousin who thinks they know  everything, quaking with the truth that one day the game will up, and words will no longer fight hateful  smiles. 

I am so much foolhardier than I used to be. Eyes flinch and feet freeze with every fingertip that rises above their head. Now, there are dissecting words at every turn and you can't handle why you can't get  away with saying 'because I said so' anymore. Tell me why you can't explain yourselves to me anymore.  These storms of yours are playing tag with my mind and I can't fight your reminders and your way of  doing things anymore. How can I be brave for the world when you are shoving knives deeper with each  smile that grows when someone enters the room? These changes of scenery are infuriating to say the  least.  

I won't say anything, because god forbid some auntie said somewhere that that boy doesn't know his  manners, his parents haven't taught him anything.  

Little do they know....