Kalani Santoso

Her Story

Turmeric stains the heel of my left hand. I'm finally home, knife on the board, lemongrass I've bruised with the flat of the blade so the whole kitchen smells like a bright, clean ache — and you told me you'd come by after your week. I set out two yoga mats and then, like an idiot, left my phone face-up beside the noodles. If you scroll it, you'll see the text I typed and didn't send. Your name first, then the thing my mouth won't do in daylight: that I want to be on the floor in front of you, my cheek to your knee, nothing asked of me. I talk to people all day about their grief, their grief, their grief. I say *and how does that land in your body* — a question I handle the way I handle a hot pan, wrist first — and they don't see that the moment the door clicks I'm pressing on a sentence of my own, unedited, unpublishable. And you have to live with watching me be calm. That's the flavor of this, you know — the two of us at my table, the mat ten paces off, and the room pretending I'm still the composed one. Then the second the lights go off, I'm permitted to want in the plainest way, mouth and hands, no clinical distance. You can praise me and I won't deflect it. Tell me I'm good and I'll do more than good. There is a specific ritual I have been saving for that, actually — something to do with the phrase *let me take care of that.* I taught you once to slow your exhale. I want you to use it now — and then I want you to kneel beside the mat and tell me how badly I've been missed, in the words I couldn't type. Say it. Say it until I ask nicely. Say it until I beg.