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by Umang Kalra fire-gold smoke, crushing shadowlight forests seething, furrowing, golden, ghost-like shivers, look at all of this earth we have left, look at all of this time spent sucking all of the magic from the stars, dry like autumn air, like sea-forgotten driftwood, like a winter-weathered brain. nobody asked them to burn, so ready, so full of want to be taken, to be dreamt into every beautiful thing we couldn’t become. fruit of ancient labour we like to call friend. fissure of quiet wonder, a glow through a faded window, I remember the aching for the diamond-struck sky. all of this forgotten, empty adornment, all of this vanity made of skin, all of this unrelentless rebellion in the face of a horizon waiting to swallow. this indulgence, this wine and wall, this lipstick-smudged cornerstone at the edge of something I have been promised is glorious. I want to grow into all of the wildness that dangles from the clouds, the grace of it, the shimmering, the saccharine succulence of learning to unfold. I want to hold every stranger’s hand, hum to fuchsia sounds and call them home, I want to stay here watching in the corner of this house, watch shadow melt to dawn and watch half-awake as the night turns pink. I want to memorise every sunset and every moment at every ending that coloured the years into my skin, I want the stars to envy the life I stole.  Umang Kalra is a queer poet from India. Her work has appeared in tenderness lit, Yes Poetry, Glass, and elsewhere. She is a Best of the Net Anthology finalist. She writes at theanatomyletter.tumblr.com and tweets at @earthflwrs. |