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Psychedelic

by Ankita Anand

Blonde heads, red lipstick, gloves, cigars, kimchi salad, Singapore noodles:

     Prepare to enter my dreams 

     as I ready myself for 

     how the night will be projected

     on the screen today.

 

There's laughter and vagueness in that party.

 

     A desperate search for Xanax begins in my anxiety—

     I don't know what it looks like,

     but foreign cinema has taught me

     what popping the pill can do.

 

     How trembling fingers struggle with the clasp of the clutch

     to find something to clutch at

     cool, cylindrical glass, that fits into a fist

     promising determination and firmness

 

     once the pill enters the fortress of the dry mouth.

 

Dare I enter?

 

They have cameras—and my sleep seeking eyes 

     Go aflutter—even at the click of the shutter:
The cue for the lightbulb to take centre stage in the room I inhabit

     Within my low voltage, similar vantage, municipal ward.

Ankita Anand is an Indian poet and writer whose works have travelled through India, Pakistan, Singapore, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, the US and the UK. She is also a journalist, and has been supported and awarded by multiple fellowships and awards in India and outside.  

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