Mrityunjay

Pisces

Father returns home late / I turn the pages of my book and listen for footsteps / when the

           metal lock turns / I bring him in and he / tells me about mother / slurred syllables burping at his throat / I listen / careful to not interrupt / hope tied to a ribbon around my neck

                                   silent as a bird at night / wing above my eye

Father returns home late / I hold the pillow to my cheeks / and / imagine his fingers on mine

           His eyes aching as they shut / his lips dried husks of pink and purple /

                                                                                               *i    *see

         *father returns home late /                                                                               *at   *the

*him                                                                                       *run        *to

                  *door                                                       *and            *greet him   

His hair is dishevelled / his lips swollen/ split in the middle like / lime / a sourness patched to

                     *his empty face / father isn’t handsome but / he has a charm that no man can

                                                                   *possess / a charm that mother had loved about him

                             *father returns home       *late / brings film tickets home and / takes me to

The night shows / the screen lights up and / swallows me whole / I float / I vibrate / I am a

                                *seed          *in the sky / looking for soil to land on / I am an animal that

                                         *searches for hope in newspapers / in the screen that screams words

that eats syllables for breakfast / I am a cloth hung to dry on a sunless morning / I drip and drip and drip

            Father returns home late / I look for him through the peephole / as he staggers to the door / drunk / swaying like a swing set in the summers / he reaches for the door / unlocks it /

          And I ask him to tell me about mother / once again

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Mrityunjay is a queer, trans, disabled writer of color. Mrityunjay's work has been published or is forthcoming in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Indianapolis Review, Oyster River Pages, The Masters Review, and elsewhere. He's been awarded scholarships by Sundance, GrubStreet, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, The Common, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. He was a semi-finalist for the Copper Canyon Press Publishing Fellowship. He has worked as a guest editor, a reader, and an intern at various literary journals. Currently, he's an editor for ANMLY, and he's a reader for The Harvard Review and The Masters Review.