Purgatorial
MRINAL PATTANAIK
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I spend all night braiding her hair. She smiles,
lets her lashes catch plaster dust. We drive out to the farthest edge of the earth, where streetlights reflect against wet asphalt and mildew stench leaves us behind. It begins like this: billboards in the sunset, her fingers above my own, something like I could love you. I fold my worries under my hemline and still my hands against the steering wheel. She holds me like a tentative future, like almost-commitment, like a healing bruise, purple-yellow. It feels like this: a flash of teeth, cherry-tinted dawn, the edges of a burning dream. She says: if we go home we’re there forever. I say I don’t care as long as I’m with her. It ends like this: mismatched hunger, aching bones, suburban skylines and raven-littered orchards. I swallow her apologies like white wine, this lover’s elegy, this almost-something. Someday, I pray to bury our yearning in the fauna to rest. |
Mrinal Pattanaik is a student at Neuqua Valley High School. She is currently an editor for her school's literary magazine, The Essence. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards, the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education, and the Live Poets Society of New Jersey.