Inauguration
Lakshmi Sunder
i celebrate the new year by peeling open january
it’s like wresting a berry from its branch crack his skull against the house pop his head into my mouth there’s a crunch of impatience in swallowing his heads -- bone and all i don’t know how to forge joy and glory so i dwindle down the forest between his two stone heads it’s falling from canopy to understory it’s being buried alive janus is the god of beginnings janus is the god of ends two-headed man -- he made this double year the first one she’d never live to see two-headed man -- he’s brewing adulthood and childhood together to make a powdery poison two-headed man -- he’s expecting me to know it all at sixteen two-headed man -- he’s scraping the nape of my neck it’s like someone tried to carve my brains out and failed settling for the heart two-headed man does not know what he has done does not know my resolution is to regorge everything he made me devour until i am the universe itself just as full just as empty |
This is a picture of the Roman god Janus.
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I'm a junior at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in the creative writing department. I primarily enjoy writing poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that delves into balancing my Indian and American heritage, intersectional feminism, my family background, and mental health. Outside of writing, I enjoy participating in and leading activist organizations like Girl Up Houston and DON HISD. In my free time, I enjoy reading, going for runs, playing piano, or listening to music.