you, me, no difference

By Dhwanee Goyal

head: she weaves tresses in the soil and 
harvests them in the winter when they are 
barren. the roots are too knotted in the 
ground for her to care when they itch her scalp.

neck: a twenty-second flash, she steps on 
an already broken trachea. her heel shrinks 
until it is inverted, but shamefulness is not
an apology-- the mistake goes uncorrected. 

chest: pungence is measured in the number 
of breaths she takes. all her clothes have 
been borrowed by the wind; she will clip her 
nose as her friend beckons to her at the door.

arms: sull what used to tear with energy-- one 
day, she’ll find an answer. these arms will 
cartwheel her across the plains to where it 
lays, searching will transform into unmaking.

stomach: she will bely a pit where it earlier
lay, and when it gauds its way onshore, she’ll 
kneel at its feet. curse her skin with but a stick, 
would that be counted as a blessing? pray.

thighs: crash dormancy into a stirring, and she’ll 
blink once, then cross her legs. crush a 
coconut in between muscle fibres, she’ll know 
that inferiority is weeded and rush collapsable.

calves/shins: tell her that when she dips her legs 
in water, the ocean cries. its plastic tears choke 
at its mouth, and it turns grey with remorse 
at its staticity. she’ll reform, red at the reprisal.

feet: she has seen the world and it is too much. 
little by little, she erodes, and a turnt shell of skin 
that covers a mirror would pronounce itself 
stranger. hello. do you see me as i do you?

Dhwanee Goyal is a fifteen-year-old from Maharashtra, India. Pretty buildings make her heart beat fast, and she adores puns, double-sided blankets, sentences that trail off and...