[Christopher Wilson/OneEyeland]

By: Aashi Mehrotra

A collection of poems meant to grapple with the immeasurable disorientation and anger currently felt by the rapidly changing political climate, the suddenly real pressures of school during junior year, and a future that no longer feels promised.

Souls of the sea

I walk on a beach dusted in legacy.

My feet are blue and cold with apology, steeped in wet history,

feeling almost disrespectful to the dead on which they step

whose bones, ground up, have become sand

thrown to the sea,

washed up on shore with waves unbothered by time.

They crash eternally, to the dismay of endings.

They crash too fast, to the dismay of beginnings.

The ocean keeps moving, moves on, and moves over.

Castles of sand sculpted with sweat, passion, life, death, and foolish desperation 

to etch reused names into forever unceremoniously crumple in a single wave. 

Once strong castle walls protect no one from the wave’s relentless ambush.

The beach is littered with remains.

Smiles that once held the power of life in their gaps and their color 

become teeth owned by the tide, mindlessly floating, 

unable to decompose.

Memories and values, impact and love, nestled inside 

enamel I’m unable to touch.

I see it on the shore, right there on the sand. 

A tooth washed up in sparkling salt beckons to be held in careful hands. 

But before I can grab it, rearrange remains into a story I can read, 

the tide snatches it back with warnings of greed.

Secrets of the past, just out of reach.

I jump in the water, deeper than my knees, hips, and what I planned. 

I submerge my open chest where my heart beats for answers, and 

strain my ears to listen for clues of life fuller than what I’ve lived yet, 

but the water moves too fast for legacy to stand.

And with the force of finality, it pushes me back to land

Lost

Desert swirls round me, 

beyond knowledge or sight.

Sore feet sink in sand, 

thin, eroded over millennia.

Alluvium leaves a grime 

in my palms as it crumbles 

through fingers dry and cracked.

Dunes to my left, 

and the unbearable sun to my right.

A Bird’s Eye offers no consolation;

the path remains 

undefined. It runs every which way: 

The eyes on the back of my head 

blink away the same picture 

as the eyes above my runny nose.

—Even the astronauts view no better 

than God’s. 

Used pink sunglasses 

paint a vision of a time before erosion,

When the sand was pebbles, tracing weaving paths,

and before that, 

when it was solid stone trails carved into mountain tops,

mortal roads, singular pavements leading the way

to salvation.

To a city of dreams,

vague and boundless,

but just strong enough in promise and hope

to construct a palace residing in minds, 

to build bridges from psyche to psyche,

connect them with desire, folded into us like instinct, 

—to develop a primitive urge passed down in DNA, 

that says, “travel North on Earth,”

no matter the road, the path, the pebble trail, 

the desert expanse, unforgiving to those who fail.

It says, “and expect a destination 

in the stars above,”

in another dimension we aren’t sure of, or if we’ll ever reach.

We might’ve imagined it,

is my final, welcome, conceit.

To Capitalism:

The earth has a pulse,

though its beats slow down.

The roses are bleeding

—its colors used only for show now.

When passion is bleached, 

is purity a vice?

Or should I be proud of my blank canvas on which you can write?

Shall I be paraded down the aisle 

draped in white? The blood rushed from my face,

to match my lack of pride.

Red roses in hand traded for a white one in my hair

claim to make me more appealing, more pure, more fair.

Lies—the things that peel are empathy and fear

The dining table

Your spit flies erratic 

And lands on the table with grace

It sizzles on the wood

Bubbles promising rage

My eyes dart down

—frantic, full of fear

When you wipe it off

I expect a hole where we sit for dinner

The acidity of your anger 

Too strong for just a stain

A burning gape might almost suffice

But my finger smears clear