NICU

Harika Kottakota

There is something sinister about the tubes twisting around you like hibernating serpents Silver fangs propelling clear liquids straight into your chest An unsustainable capillary action A heartbeat that may never be your own My eyes play the most insidious games as they reconnect the electrode patches in every formation Fingers trace the neon green spikes desperate for clues The amniotic fluid has bleached you inside and out But I still imagine the lucifer blue swallowing you whole Your breath barely warm enough to fog the glass between us

-Harika Kottakota is a fourth-year undergraduate student from Burbank, CA, pursuing a major in Biology, minors in Human Rights and Africans Studies, and Interdisciplinary Honors in Science, Technology, and Society at Stanford University.-