Size / / /

By tomorrow I'll be rewritten,
a better me will be here,
one that will forget to mourn
the absence of this stinking fear.

Every movement will be reset,
run not too fast nor too slow.
They'll check for leaks, dry the wet
patches, plug every numeric overflow.

They say that it's just a tweak,
like my frontal lobe's a baby's cheek.
The strong always devour the weak,
and swallow, grow hard and sleek.

And yet,

down in my sub sub sub
conscious,
down in the pit that watches
with its wounded black eyes,
its mouth cringed in resentment.
It extends its snake like fingers
across my cheek—
a ghoul's version of a caress.
I'll take care of you
it says.
There's an undying you inside me
that burns burns burns,
and when I finally set you free— 
you'll run riot among your enemies,
walk down dimensions that their flesh
can't even feel,
toss the bullying sun back at itself
from those bright metal eyes,
and swim home to me across the void
like the first salmon spawning.




Rohinton Daruwala lives and works in Pune, India. He tweets as @wordbandar and blogs at https://wordbandar.wordpress.com/. His first collection of poems is The Sand Libraries of Timbuktu (Speaking Tiger 2016). His work has previously appeared in Strange Horizons, New Myths, Star*Line, Liminality, Through the Gate, and Silver Blade.
Current Issue
16 Dec 2024

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.
exposing to the bone just how different we are
a body protesting thinks itself as a door out of a darkroom, a bullet, too.
In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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