Writing a poem is like reaching across scalding history for you
Skin peeled off flesh, bereaved, mourning archived scars for you.

Writing a poem is like turning sunshine to amber, memory too hollow
Weighted sorrow, failed metanoia, ossified guilt in letters for you.

Writing a poem is like taming fire in full regalia, jumping off the cliff
Holding my breath 90 seconds too long, heaving ashes in ink for you.

Writing a poem is like courting ornate melancholia—waiting for meadowlark
Absent songs, so replaced with grief, laughing at amnesia, starves symphonies for you.

Writing a poem is like petals a plenty forgotten on the third line in the fourth book
Holding secrets in ignis fatuus, searching for the ringlet, so many scriptures were burnt for you.

SOHINI CHATTERJEE holds an MA in International Relations which does not explain her literary inclinations. She is from India and her poems have so far appeared in Coldnoon: Travel Poetics, Rag Queen Periodical, Café Dissensus Everyday, Quell Bell and Whisper and Roar: A Feminist Literary Collective. Chatterjee identifies as a feminist and dabbles in writing and research focused on gender and politics.