by Lakshmi Mitra

winterkill is so many years young never-getting-old
and she can run, oh
she can run
and her claws are nimble and always freshly sharp
she smells of the deodorant you haven’t yet washed off
she smells of staling sheets wearing out their welcome, scab wounds
that dry only to be torn open again
she tastes insipid, sore—
she tastes like that piece of bread you ate three days ago

winterkill has
a throat that swallows lies and spits them out whole and round
she builds cities teeming with disease, she crafts her own monsters
aches in your ribs and caves in your belly, insects in your teeth
and moth-eaten lungs in dark spaces

winterkill sinks her claws in but leaves no puncture wounds
a benign crime scene;
no one will ever know, how you go
how you go.

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Lakshmi Mitra is a 19-year-old college student living in Kolkata who occasionally frustrates herself into a bout of writing. When not doing so, she can be found reading, studying, craving sleep, and complaining. She is mostly polite, a lousy conversationalist, and doesn’t like sudden movements. Therefore, it comes as a great surprise to her that her cats still don’t like her. She blogs at anotherwinterheart.tumblr.com.