As the cathedral burns, I only notice
the matchsticks on the ground, still alight.
My breath, still alive. All the kids in the park—
did they know? When they screamed go go go
or said fire in the mountain, run run run?
Like our lives will all stop in beats of threes.
Like our tongues of lies are an intertwined
wildfire. All those wheels of life on the floor
of the building, trampled and ash: I wonder
how many non-exhales it takes to label a
death. When voices aren’t a calling anymore,
just echoes. Like all of our mouths that were
too hot to really speak. All the declarations
that were too thin to catch on fire. We could do
this maybe, when the lightning around is too
shy for impact, when all the lips we’ve kissed
have fallen apart at touch. You should know,
the graves overhead will never stop beckoning.
The skeletons will always call you family.
Do not heed them. Do not step into the flames.
The cathedral will remain burning, always.
–
Dhwanee Goyal is a sixteen-year-old student from Maharashtra, India. An editor-in-chief of Indigo Literary Journal, her work appears or is forthcoming in Claw & Blossom, Heavy Feather Review, and Kissing Dynamite, amongst others. Her Twitter handle is @pparallell, and her micro-chapbook, Kasauli Daydreams, is out from Ghost City Press.