My palate and throat are like the night sky littered with stars that shine against the inky blackness. But these are not stars. It is glass dust swallowed today and yesterday and many yesterdays before. Each embedded speck is a wound, is an insult, is a slight swallowed because I did not know what else to do or because I wanted to maintain that precious peace. But I am now learning the art of alchemy and the glass dust and the spit in my mouth and my spirit are melding, transforming into a shield, into a dagger, into a battlefield.

…

Ronita Chattopadhyay (she/her) finds refuge in words. She also makes a living out of it while supporting not for profit organisations in India. Her poems have appeared in The Hooghly Review, Roi Fainéant Press, Akéwì Magazine, Setu, Rogue Agent Journal, RIC Journal, streetcake magazine, among others, and anthologies by Querencia Press (Winter Anthology 2024) and Sídhe Press (To Light The Trails – Poems By Women In A Violent World).