Poem

Shourya Agarwal & Kees Heetdeks

Isley’s Icecream. Bleached white walls dripping on Jem and Scout. The parlour melting between tongue strokes, White splattered on dark palatesHansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house. Just more cozy and without the witch. Jem looks out at the counter, An earnest smile crashing onto An upturned upper-lip sprinkled with scorn. A small ant-trail, milky white Trickles into his shoe. Scout notices but chooses to unsee. Cream filled to the brim in Jem’s throat He can only speak in ice-cream gobbles To spill everything onto Scout. A large splash of white on the table A lot of cold...enveloping the siblings. A lot of laughter in that deathly grip

Jem Scout The Day of reckoning The Day of challenge A hopeful call An eavesdropped call Jem gets to join a pack of wolves Scout rushed ahead to pack Comradery between half-baked men the gladiator armour Strength of the wolf is the pack The icy numbness of evenings Strength of the pack is the wolf without her brother. He thinks these men will give him everything She echoes back his happiness Except what he precisely needs. Smiles lighting one another like candles

A frantic search in a dingy closet A frantic boy projecting A chest strapped to the gladiator armour. Onto his need for her A heavy emptiness underneath Worrying Scout helps put on the pads She tosses him the keys Wishes him luck for the To his own demise Contest of…champions Tickets to his downfall

The clock froze. Eagle crashes down Every commercial, every movie Claws buckled, clipped wings Every sliced turkey, every coach into the darkness of the unmade bed. Take flesh all at once. She picks up the fallen helmet, Then slowly thawed and trickled away The soiled armour resembling Only the clock-hands could toy back A tin shield peeled from the soldier As the boy fell through the time. A crippled tortoise out of the shell A loud thud which no one heard A Steely gaze is his last defence Broken pieces under the armour Until no longer can the grunts hold up. Held together by silenced sobs The melted torrent takes control Wolves don’t cry, they don’t bleed. He shuts his eyes biting back the tears They wait for solitary full-moons Mu ed against the pillowhead. To ejaculate their anguish His body does not obey Years of dried streams flush at once An upturned inkpot on the sheets Until speech becomes madness. Warm liquid slowly ebbing from within. Push the feeling deep deep down She doesn't need his tears to see him Into that little dark box Just through the hole in the trousers Healed up under the bed She can sense the tumult raging within Too low for Achilles to reach Through the body of her once cheerful brother Undead vampires fester within the box The back that for years was her playground Growing fangs on the lonliest of nights Is crumbling in front of her eyes Leaching o the raw venom There is no emotion and just man

That flows below the armour.

Here is the boy.He is strong, big, and confident. The boy has everything he wants. He is good at sports and is a “man”(Everyone wants to be him). He goes home, does not talk with his family, does not talk with anyone. He is a man Here is the boy he is strongbigconfident The boy has everything he wants He is good at sports and is a man everyone wants to be him He goes home does not talk with his family does not talk with anyone He is a man

HereistheboyheisstrongandbigandconfidentTheboyhaseverythinghewantheisgoodatsportsandthinksheisamanEveryonewantstobehimHegoesHomehedo esnottalkwithhisfamilyhedoesnottalkwithanyoneheisaman