Chapter 1: Abjects In The Mirror… May Be Closer Than They Appear

Hidden among hawkers, tickled terse.
Trembling trebles, heady hearts rehearse
Faux once, your beats in theirs
Tracked to you, which theatre dares?

Idle eeriedescent nets nestling
Trickling, tripling into you, you sing
Do you hate me? Or some aspect: 
Afreud of living; a child in retrospect

But you scare me, there’s no lie there
Truth can be iceclearcold, but lay you bare
Flickering evening jewels of bluebright crystal
Sinyour eyes, a lust burst bestial

Chapter 2: Songbird

Ma sunset along Da barely blue, pearly plumes of a soonset ocean. Its drowning descent apolling to children of the day, as assault spray comes from asoon asunder sunsual sunsea. Sunseen sunswept, unseen sons wept as Ma is swallowed, and pederast Da looks for Ouranos. 

Arjun Khade is a 22-year-old medical student at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal. He serves as the Managing Editor of Manipal The Talk Network, Manipal’s largest and oldest student-run media organization. Hailing from the Vanjari community, a denotified nomadic tribe systematically marginalized under colonial rule, he is also a KVPY fellow and NTSE scholar, both of which were awarded by the Government of India. He is most recently a Rewrite 2024 fellow (organized by Studio Ainak), headed by National Award-winning filmmakers Suruchi Sharma and Ashok Meena. His literary inspirations include Joyce, Nabokov, Pushkin, Woolf, and Wallace.