The Journey
Atreyee Gupta

Ω 

I recollect a childhood of vegetation  
dark leaves palming prayer towards the sun  

I recollect vermilion laterite 
stretching to paths 
beyond the plantation 

I recollect being bled out  
from my mother’s torso — 
a milky coagulation 

skinned from her bark 
breath strained into sheet 

body molded 
for comfort and ease, 
cast as object 
to please 

I awake to another me 

ॐ 

Many moons we wove 
in pursuit of hidden doors  

knit through burnt meadows 
waded wounded rivulets, 
my tongue dreaming  
of tangled shores 

threading summits, 
pilgrim throats afire in the rain, 
we sought worlds beyond 

where I could be meaning 
and you could be innocent 

but the world was with us  

in the bruised mosses’ afterglow 
and the winged scavengers circling 

∞ 

Every light spirals 
towards its black hole 

every dream drowns  
so another can fly 

and as I near  
my event horizon 
the nightingale  
sings no solutions  

only a hymn in syncopation  
wild with grief 
and declination — 

embrace cracked night, 
half-life decay
into minutiae of gamma rays,  

between self and other 
lies no border 
ad infinitum… 

❦