"People Are Not Homes"

By Aananda Verma

i dared to find warmth in a heart not my own and the tide left me stranded with

hands burnt to black. sea foam in my wounds and salt on my tongue, the rocks

have slit me open and i am bleeding bare. alone alone alone again again again.

i am brittle i am breaking i am a remnant of your love. deafening silence

enveloping startling cold. to drown with the sun like a glorious warning, the fates

make for tragic playwrights. washed up on shore like a message in a bottle for

every orphan this side of town, yelling after them words of rushed red- don’t make

people into things they are not. people are not homes.

By Aananda Verma