you lit the fire and you waited for it
to hold us captive in it’s orange kindle,
to burn into our skin till it could taste the
relinquish of our muscles,
to seep into our dreams and paint them the colour of nightmares,
to lift us up and crush beneath us all our recklessness,
to carry us to the ashes our riots.
you lit the fire but you forgot
that we have weaved out our skin from the aftermath of the last time you tried to burn this alive,
that we have learnt how to dream through the smoke,
that our hands have held the sun and our hearts rise and fall with it,
that fire is only lethal to those who haven’t been raised inside it,
that this?
this is just the beginning of what you tried to bury.
By Sushmita Ghoshal
About Sushmita:
Susmita Ghoshal is a 19 year old from Mumbai, India. She’s a lover of poetry, history and cats. Her work has been published in online magazines including Spillwords and Brown Girl Magazine, among others. She is currently doing her undergrad in dentistry. You can find more of her work here – www.instagram.com/iknowsush
Artwork by Cynthia Tedy.
