Rewind
Here: what is mine is yours. We sit on your faded
suede couch in crumbling suburbia & watch
the same VHS tape over & over. Here: what is old
will kill us. The video is grainy & barely there. You
clutch your hand in your hand & I watch your
knuckles whiten, the screen a static backdrop
against the liquid murkiness between us. Here: I
don’t know how much you remember of the lake,
the fog, your body sinking blue & wrinkled. The
windows just less tragic prisms projecting light
across the shadows of our faces. The night became
the brightest part of us. The stars melted into
uncertainty, clouding our vision. Here: if I push you
into a bathtub of ice cold water, will it feel the same?
I’ve filled it & drained it, pressed my cheek against
the porcelain and tried to imagine what you felt,
your body dissolving into water, your limbs flailing
as if it wasn’t your own fault you were stuck beneath
a sheet of ice, no way to shatter that hyperpixelated
TV screen without taking an axe to it. Your hands
were crimson & purple, your cheeks concave against
your face. Here: I don’t like to write about you—
this nightmare, this silence. I don’t like to admit that I
sat shivering in the snow by the bank, thinking it was
all just a dream. Here: we’ve been gone for a while
now. I’m lost in apology, you’re still stuck behind
that screen. The couch looks the same on both sides
& I hope you’re watering the wildflowers in your
kitchen. Sometimes we stare at each other for too long
& then I smash my fists against the TV. Here: there’s
only a hairline crack in the corner but my hands are
bandaged & bloody. Here: my life turned linear,
a singular path between the bathtub & the living
room. Here: there’s an axe in the garage for the day
I can’t stand the sight of you anymore. Here: the
windows are frosted with ice & the house has a layer
of frozen dust. Here: It is my turn to turn off the receiver,
clutch my hand in my hand & lace my fingers together.
Here: I let my body become swollen & empty against a January night.
Anika Prakash is a senior in high school and the editor-in-chief of Red Queen Literary Magazine. Her poetry has been recognized by The Adroit Journal, Scholastic Art & Writing, and the Writers' Theatre of New Jersey, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a Platypus Press anthology, Red Paint Hill, Noble Gas Qtrly, Hobart, The Ellis Review, and Glass, among others.