I feel like I can do this, 

the impossible may just slip

out of my shoulders into

the endless dark, and I can

then feel your dust on my

body. A soldier cry was

just an expectation that you

didn’t fulfill, so I will stand

for you here, wait for

your customs to engulf

me. When I touch my skin

and look into my lateral

soundtrack, the beauty

is invisible, and I can only

dream of ever loving it. The

heart that can respond to

its own praise, something

my flaws can only

imagine. So it washes over

my palms and my figure

wrenches to hold 

onto its only hope that is

me, the only soul who

ever thought of crushing

it and mixing it between 

their fingers they silently

rip from their roots. Stand

back and watch the

fireworks cover my 

shape, and make it 

beautiful.

Neha Varadharajan (she/her) is a high school poet, proser and songwriter planted in Pune, India. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The WEIGHT Journal, Trouvaille Review, Cathartic Lit, Hearth Mag, Crossed Paths, Ice Lolly Review and elsewhere. A poetry apprentice at Breakbread Magazine, she is a 2021 Incandescent Summer Studio mentee in poetry. Her other pursuits include programming, listening to Taylor Swift's albums on repeat, and the exploration of everything.