Congestion

She wanted to tear it out from inside her and fling it to the streets so that it would stop pricking so much. It was like a callus, thick, pricking, uncomfortable and yet a part of her. She should have been careful. She might have prevented the callus if she had been careful, but she hadn't. And in that repeated friction, burning and toil, her insides had developed calluses. She should have remained still, so very still that there was no friction or burning. But she hadn't remained still. She had allowed herself to open up. She had allowed herself to love. And she knew she was incapable of unloving.

So she picked the bundles of firewood, landed them one atop another on the cart and started pushing again as the memory of a man she loved- the man who too had loved her for a while and abandoned- filled her like tears filled her eyes and smoke congested her chest, every time she put damp wood on the angena and blew, trying to make a fire.