PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
I start with the inside of things.
The shredded long nape of the veins,
and the cartilage bending
at the edge. Pouring water into flesh,
hitting softly, softly
into the darkness of nails, eyes becoming
ghosts and the leaves
withering, turbulent gasps of the summer
wind, the opening and closing
of a hand. Most of all, it is the quiet,
receding static in the back,
that calls me to the body.
I remain limited to it
and to the inside of skins.
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SMRITI VERMA grew up in Delhi, India. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Word Riot, Open Road Review, Alexandria Quarterly, Inklette, Textploit and Yellow Chair Review. Further work is forthcoming in Cleaver Magazine. She is the recipient of the Save The Earth Poetry Prize 2015 and enjoys working as a Poetry Reader for Inklette and Editorial Intern at The Blueshift Journal.
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Read more by Smriti Verma:
Prose piece in Open Road Review
Poem in Word Riot
Three poems in Alexandria Quarterly