Dehydration

By Shragvi Yadav

Hangnails, modern art and blue-yellow paints,

Eyeballs, sickness and ill will remains,

A rice dish, a turmeric night and they shout—

They silence-they shout.

Do you still have something to say?

Algebra, schools and a windy day,

Blood on my lips, the water’s salty and grey,

Hate him, her, them and myself,

Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing,

Like a dysfunctional fray,

Like Lady Lazarus—

Ringing, ringing, ringing,

Like a prayer.

Psychedelic dreams, psychedelic it feels, psychedelic it reads.

Tool, tool, tool—

A tool to death it is to forget oneself,

To remember oneself,

And what is then?

To not remember to not forget oneself,

Death, death, death,

She comes each day and stinks—

Stinks of mediocrity, of grit, of a sharp green sting,

O’ what a thing, what a thing?

Peel off my skins,

O’ my bones will reek.

Light detests me,

Fury, fury, fury,

Give me words to let myself know how I feel.

Clocks, mazes, and dirty rugs,

Pale organs, broken sleeps, the constant psychological neigh,

I hate the month of May.

“Are you frightened? You can’t write.”—(I’m afraid of me.)

Existing, existing, existing,

And not dying,

Standing there—deathly ruled,

Dehydrated from life’s pursuit.

By Shragvi Yadav