“Drink Me” by Sanjana Ramanathan

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This maudlin garden grows tired

of spitting me out onto the croquet ground

again. I’ve grown used to gripping flamingo

feet, I’ve stopped fighting against my poker

face, I’ve started wearing white gloves

to bed.

The pocket clock says I’m late

for a date I can’t quite remember.

I can’t quite remember—

where I kept that cake,

the one that will stretch me out into

constellations so I don’t feel like a dustspeck

in the wind falling right through the earth

again.

What a curious feeling—

Poison used to taste better from a teacup.

But that shrinking feeling inside of me,

the one that makes me feel like

an echo of myself,

the one that makes me think I must be

shutting up like a kaleidoscope,

sings with its caterpillar voice inside my head.

I must be spiralling down that rabbit hole once more.

Where else do my thoughts chase each other’s tails

like this?

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Sanjana Ramanathan is an English student at Drexel University. She enjoys playing video games, cracking open a new book, and daydreaming. Her work has been published or is upcoming in The Front Porch Review, The Confessionalist Zine, and The 33rd, among others. You can find her on Twitter @sanjubilees.