dip two fingers in
to
yourself and
ask your body where it hurts:
some days it will shrink and curl
and cry and stain you red until
you grimace in disgust and wash away
the filth you have created, painting
rust, sunsets, poppies, life
onto cold, stark tile that weighs down
upon you like mountains
some days it will bloom, it will give you
an open field instead of tightly bunched up buds,
it will give you
the smear of paint
on fingers as little as yours used to be, it will
give you hearts and thumping veins,
moonlight spun into your bones, your
beat in step with the shimmer of nighttime clouds
some days it will ask for patience,
it will ask for softness, silk and honey and
fluttering wings, beautiful
like they told you you needed to be, it will ache
for finger(nail)s, clipped like all of the words
that were at the
edge of your tongue, swallowed,
too quick too sudden too big for your throat
to grow into
some days it will ask to be held, withdrawn,
only warmth and soft breaths on its skin, no hands,
no adventures claiming to make it their own
some days it will ask for shelter,
for strength,
for armour,
for a bed to fall into, too tired
to even meet the gaze of the sun, and
some days it will ask for weapons, for words,
for magic to sink its toes into, it will ask for greatness,
for screams and anger and other, darker things, all
seeped in honey, dripping
with the words they told you
to paint into the insides of your skull,
spat out to stain the earth,
a scar shaped like your voice, a temple
built just for you
Umang Kalra is a 20 year old Indian poet and student of History at Trinity College, Dublin. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, College Green Journal, Moonchild Magazine, Icarus, and others. She has served as a Prose Reader for Inklette Magazine and was involved in a year-long mentorship programme for women of colour in Ireland, under Doireann Ní Ghríofa.