afterthelonely:

i say, ‘the weight is unbearable,’
and you say ‘what weight,’
so i shrug & roll my shoulders
like it was all a joke.

above me, atlas groans &
glares at me, mouths ‘liar,’
like it’s something i do not already know.

i ignore him & splay my hands
across my stomach, tracing
the place where the world
wraps around my torso.
the place where prometheus
is lashed to the rocks,
bellowing every time i do
not move.
nowadays, that is almost daily.

every poem i’ve written
in the last year has had the
word ‘change,’ in it,
and yet nothing is changing.

i say ‘the world is on my back,’
and yet i only say it to the
girl in the mirror.

she says she knows, and i smile,
and she smiles. we sleep curled
into each other, one hand always
reaching for atlas, like
a weak attempt to reach for home.

METAMORPHIC // Darshana Suresh