ELEGY FOR MY OWN ADORATION
by Umang Kalra

Smudge-softened dust and glass and the crushed
flower petals of somewhere fall face-first and rub
shoulders with the quiet song of something, somewhere, 
slowly frothing into life, while everything lost to skylight
yesterday unlearns becoming in the drains of the city. 
There is always somewhere else to go but the pink 
seems to follow even the distance, even the laugh 
of somebody who has forgotten where to look, even 
the moon on a day like today, sun-scorched and 
            magenta in all of its light, so furiously glittering that
            you forget what the sky is for. I am standing
            on the same corner as everyday, wondering 
            if I am beautiful enough to be allowed
            to breathe as easily as I do, shifting
            between what is brazen, daring, reckless
            delirium and what is distasteful, tired, a delusional
            grandeur, ripped to shreds in a moment, confetti
made unsoftened before it falls. 

Umang Kalra is a queer Indian poet. She is a Best of the Net Anthology finalist. She is the Poetry Editor at the Brown Orient Literary Journal. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Yes Poetry, Queen Mobs' Teahouse, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Cotton Xenomorph, Vagabond City, and others. She tweets at @earthflwrs and writes at theanatomyletter.tumblr.com.