Dear Rome,
I was a piece of parchment
paper held together by glass
when we last met,
Dear Trevi Fountain,
I was eleven when I stopped making wishes
I threw a coin at you
and the milky way fell down
from the midnight sky, leaving
a trail of dried-dandelion-skeletons.
Their needles were still piercing me
when I saw you leaning
against the summer’s naked night.
I didn’t know how
to break through,
to touch you.
Dear Bernini,
If the rape of Proserpina
can be made so soft
that I can feel my forefinger
meet my thumb between the skin
hugging my ribs,
can I be sculpted back to life?
I’m scared the language
holding us together
will start to tear.
Dear Spolia Wall,
You showed me it’s acceptable to hold
onto haphazardly stuck remains.
I keep you trapped
behind the breaking glass
on my phone, hoping
you will slip through the cracks,
materialize into my life.
Dear Etruscans,
You taught me how to exist
when I didn’t believe I was alive.
Even though it feels like
we never met,
I miss you.
Ragini Gupta is a third-year student at the University of Washington, Seattle, where she is pursuing a double-major in Creative Writing (English) and Journalism (Communications). She aspires to combine her love for poesis with narrative journalism by exploring topics such as gender, race, and sexuality – to name a few.
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