The Shallow Ends
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SPLENDOUR

2/27/2020

 
                    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.












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Picture

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.

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