BY FEATURED WRITER: Priyanka Sacheti

One Day

PRIYANKA SACHETI / OCT 2021 / ISSUE 10

you were there, one day, you weren’t.

I thought I carried seven seas

inside me but they were only tears.

What, after all, is a saltless life?

I can still see the unfurled hibiscus,

glowing quietly in the dusty December light.

I can still sense the Gulmohar tree soothing

my hunched grief,

knowing I had been happy there only

months ago.

I cannot write petrol without thinking of you.

It is a favorite scent of mine

but it was a truth I nurtured in secret:

myself at petrol stations,

drunk on those rich fumes.

But now that you are gone,

have been gone for so long,

I reveal to the world

this, this petrol love of mine

and feel nothing at all.

Priyanka Sacheti is a writer and poet based in Bangalore, India. She grew up in the Sultanate of Oman and previously lived in the United Kingdom and United States. Her literary work has appeared in many literary journals such as Barren, Parentheses Art, Dust Poetry Magazine, Popshot, The Lunchticket, and Jaggery Lit, as well as various anthologies. She is currently working on a poetry and short story collection.