I-float-until-I-am-hung / I-am-hanging-while-I-float-Introducing New Sudden Denouement Member Aakriti Kuntal

You will often find me hanging loosely

Like structures of dust, under the mattress,

above the mattress, on the shelf, the window,

the bookrack, in the things I touch, in the things

I mirror

Mother said ‘ You should have died sooner ‘

I wonder if I should have plucked my naval

into a bleeding pool and draped the umbilical cord around my paper

corset, a Sakura hangman’s knot

I rinse my throat every morning as I enter the mirror

in my threaded bluish gown, my face cut and placed,

Like seismic continents sewn by beaded colors

I take the toothpaste and rub it onto my teeth, lest anyone

detect the stench from a failing me,

run my face under water,

a few hundred times, hoping my skin would grow ameba feet

and hide inside the uterus of damp pipelines

Hoping then that all of me would follow

and I…