the sky was the wrong color when i arrived

By Sreeja Naskar

A bouquet buckles in the backseat, the petals already slouched against glass,
I drive out of the city—Chicago shrinking behind me,
its windows like teeth in the sun. I once named my sister after the sky,
a made-up word, syllables now dissolved in my throat.
I remember braiding her hair on the balcony, slipping planets into the strands,
calling them by names that were never ours—Sun, Mercury,
the cold ring of Saturn. The braid unraveling in the wind.

The road bends,
the cornfields flare into distance. I press harder on the pedal.
Her house rises at the edge of the suburb,
pale and unfinished as a prayer. I glance once at the backseat— 
the flowers collapsed into each other, their bodies molten,
a bruise of yellow and red, like grandfather’s hand
when it slid into mine at the last breath,
fingers softening into air.

I had cried into my sister’s shirt then,
watched sorrow bloom dark across the cotton,
a stain spreading like wings of some small animal.
Now the bouquet whimpers in the heat,
its stems twisted, its petals curled inward.

I park. Step out.
The flowers are light in my hands,
lighter than grief, lighter than memory.
I think of my mother’s smile—its shape,
how it once carried me like a blade carries reflection.
But my hands— 
my hands are red and blue graves,
veins swelling like roots in shallow soil.
The bouquet rests there,
a burial too small to name.
​
Inside the house, my sister waits,
her hair unbraided, her eyes the color of
something I have no word for anymore.
I raise the wilted bouquet between us,
but it feels like lifting a body I cannot claim.

---

the orange light couldn't tell us apart from the dead

By Sreeja Naskar

The deer lies crooked on the asphalt,
its legs twitching like broken wires. We pull over.
The headlights collapse against the trees.
My girlfriend kneels—her dress gathering dust— 
and presses her palm to its ribs,
whispering something so thin it feels
like smoke unraveling into prayer.

I watch her mouth move,
her breath falling against fur still warm.
The orange streetlight leans over her,
and the blood splatter across her cheek
is not horror but glow,
a wound turned halo.
I have never seen her look more sainted.

Gasoline drips from somewhere,
a slow rhythm against the dirt,
its smell climbing my throat,
mingling with the iron scent of blood.
Mercy stings like copper coins
pressed to the tongue.

I stand apart,
my hands stiff against the air,
while she bows deeper,
her hair spilling like black water across the ribs.
The deer does not move now,
only the road hums with trucks in the distance.
​
She rises finally,
her palms red, her face shadowed
with something I cannot name.
When she turns toward me,
I cannot tell if she is bleeding,
or if devotion has made her holy.

---

i don't wanna talk about anything

By Sreeja Naskar

peach juice on your wrist
runs down to the kitchen tile,
slipping into the grout.
you hang your jeans from the balcony railing,
still wet from river water
& my name on the cuff in grass.
a bee lands on your ankle.
you tell it to stay.

wicker chair. ceiling fan.
fan pulling shadows across your collarbone.
your shoulder burns red.
on the way home you pull into a gas station
& don’t get out.
the dashboard light paints your face
in that ugly yellow truth
we only wear at 2 AM.
you say “i think i’m disappearing.”
i say “me too.”
you say “don’t.”

circle of red oak.
circle of moths in the porch light.
you fall asleep in a room that smells like soap and thunder.
i listen to your breath catch.

we never say it.

later,
you butter toast with one hand,
hair up, eyes bruised.
i ask if you dreamed anything.
you say “no, but something woke me.”

christmas eve.
there’s soup boiling,
a glass ornament shattered behind the couch.
my sister asks if i still cry in my sleep.
the dog growls at the window like it knows what’s coming.
grief slips back down the hallway
in socks.
your sweater’s left damp in the laundry basket,
your voice crawling at the bottom of the answering machine.
the one i don’t play anymore.

every room holds your shape in negative.
teeth marks on the spoon.
thumbprint in the butter.
grief folded into the seams of the curtains.
by now I’ve forgotten to pray.

my hands — yours.
my hunger — yours.
my children — 
don’t ask about them.
​
i peel an orange
and wait for the smell to bring you back.
it ends where you didn’t.
in the hallway.
with the door half closed.

---

hymn for the unholy

By Sreeja Naskar

i lit a match in the confession booth
          just to see what would burn.
          it was me.
          then the wood.
          then everything i never said out loud.

there’s god, even here.
even when my spit tastes like gin
and old iron,
and my hands are down someone’s throat
pulling out
          the last yes they ever gave me.

love lives in the gutter water
behind the liquor store.
i’ve seen it— 
two boys swapping hoodies
in the rain
so no one sees the bruises.

i cursed in the third row of church.
said motherfucker during the Our Father.
looked straight into the organist’s eyes
because i meant it.
the stained glass flickered.
the candles flinched.
and still— 
nobody dragged me out.

i think love might be the hand
that slaps
then stays
to wipe the blood.
i think god might be
          the scream
          caught in the throat
          of the choirboy
who forgot the words
          and sang anyway.

there’s love in the ashtray,
in the scar you gave yourself
just to feel symmetrical.
there’s god in the gas station bathroom
when the girl hands you a tampon
          and doesn’t ask questions.

i said i don’t believe
but still write poems
as if i’m scared of being
          unwritten.

even the rats kneel
when it rains.

even the cracked hands
of a man who never said sorry
know how to hold
a baby bird
          gently.

i bled into my jeans and named it worship.
i kissed someone’s knuckles,
thinking they were relics.
i said fuck you
and meant
          please don’t go.

there’s god
even in that.
especially in that.

---

​Sreeja Naskar is a young poet based in India. Her first poetry collection, Sunflowers and Silhouettes, was published by BriBooks. Her work has appeared in Poems India, Lake Poetry, Cordite Poetry Review, ONE ART, Ink Sweat and Tears, Crowstep Journal, The Chakkar, Trace Fossils Review, and elsewhere.