Blue Summer

Rhea Sharma, India

I turned blue this summer and no one believes me.
You could wring ink out of my bones,
And they would write, in crooked rivers,
Tales of all the things I have lost—

A yellow notebook so flower-flooded
That it smells like the rain-streaked graves
Of what once bloomed in my grandma's garden;
A lover's name bobbing like a message in a bottle,
Set for my shores, but never quite reaching;
Three hours forgotten in a rum-burnt haze,
Playing over and over on an angry wall of teal,
The grains of static grinding between my teeth,
And a broken record apology from a dry, aching throat
Dressed in a voice that sounded like mine.

I turned blue this summer
And my mother worries that I may be afflicted
By a malady of darkened eyes and cracked lips,
Of clocks I don't wind on time
And bills I don't pay.
Loved ones dangle like broken strings from my shoulders
When they touch me, I feel wasted
For their affection and probably otherwise.

I turned blue because I am the malady
I turned blue because June in this city scalds everyone like an Arizona afternoon
And my feet, still sock-snug and dry
Feel frozen.
I am convalescence reversed,
I am the tea-dredges held back by the strainer,
Colour-drawn and flaccid.

I am not periwinkle softness
Or the pale bubbling streams of my hometown,
I have become as blue as the pills in my father's closet
Way past their expiration date,
But their conviction is so immaculate
That he could swear,
Puking them up over the scarce sink,
That the bottle looked just fine when he took them.

Rhea Sharma is a copywriter and published author currently based out of Bangalore, India. She graduated from Manipal University Jaipur as a gold medalist in English Literature and is currently working on several personal writing projects. Her first novella titled Milky Tea & Vodka was published in June 2020 by the publishing imprint of media house Terribly Tiny Tales, TTT Books. She has also been published by Penguin India and Writer’s Pocket. In addition to this, she is the co-founder of Kalakaar Kabutar, a startup that delivers art and poetry on paper-based products.