a meandering godship

My body is me mirrored in the temple. My throat carves marble into its throat. We twist in tandem— the gods in its womb cut deeper into their instruments with the rending of each day, my knuckles rank into the ebony of the keyboard. I picture Airavata, him weaving the skin of his master each night, disease no disease a blessing— my teeth culled, cutting into the instrument. I garner that we are expendable, how our lives split into each other, shikharas sturdy as bloodshed. What I mean is that I wound my house around me like a chariot sinking against the sun, stoic & unyielding. See how Indra glosses upon the wreckage, his helmet buried under the flood, expression fetid-lipped, split-lipped. He tucks his face under his armpit, pulls another one from under the stake. and another, and another. I am cognate with the way we pause in the hatches stemming sacrilege, wine-drunk at his feet. When his glass breaks against the putrid gold, we chant and another, and another, faces collapsing against each other like red queens, like aces, like kings. Like the Govardhan-rain, the flood sinks into us like mud, stoic & unyielding.

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Dhwanee Goyal (she/her) is a sixteen-year-old student from Maharashtra, India. An editor-in-chief of Indigo Literary Journal, her work appears or is forthcoming in Claw & Blossom, Cabinet of Heed, Kissing Dynamite, and more. Her Twitter handle is @pparallell, and her micro-chapbook, ‘Kasauli Daydreams,’ is out from Ghost City Press. She is an Adroit Journal 2021 mentee and an alumnus of Iowa Young Writers’ Studio.