Aniket Sanyal‘s recent work has appeared in APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, Zero Readers, BRUISER, and Expat Lit. He was born in India, lives in New Jersey and is a graduate of Rutgers University. Aniket can be found on Twitter @AniketSanyal6.

Temperamental Wound

Kissed clean by a curved mouth
The dexterity of a destruction goddess
Her demonic wreath ten-thousand heads wide
Seven lifetimes deep

All that has repulsed me
The moment I was brought to the
Brink of imagination
Little more than the
Soot-stained breath of nightmares

In that awful candid way
Awestruck by temperamental wounds
Only amounting to common scar tissue

Such careless phrases no longer work
That familiar magic and spark of life

So we yearn to be remade
Beating back the shape of the boy
To carve out the better image of a man

You know better than anyone else
That tight-lipped screeds like these
Erupt escaped between blood-stained
Teeth and eyes that dance
With a ten-ton death wish

You ruined me with
Backward smiles and sighs

I’ll settle back content
A commoner’s familiar misery
Even this last evening on Earth
Every worthy lover alive
Burns with the fire of silly
Temperamental wounds