a remedy
Saru Potturi

i haven't felt too well today.
it's not my fault:
it never is.
don't say i'll shine: i'm just like
clementine, falling to pieces,
pieces. recess comes
and smooths my creases out:
i'm tonguing at my gums.
i bungled it
and tumbled down
and they said: humpty, one more round.
and all my cracks
are welded up
in silver:
a kintsugi of its own right.
it's not my fault:
it never is.
and kindness lies heavy upon my spastic
shoulders, smiling boulders,
and i just grow older, older.
and i keep soldering: i smolder
smoke with no flame, growing colder.
growing slowly
ever colder.
i paid my debt in loneliness
and said, and said:
enough, enough.
it's not my fault, but then
it never is.
tomorrow
and tomorrow
and tomorrow
creeps
in this
petty
pace.
and i'm saving face: my saving grace
the clay that molded me drip-dripping
i sold my fingernails off for
a chance at peace.
it's pieces, pieces
held in place by
held in place by
held in place by--

Saru Potturi (Pomona '24) is an Indian poet-writer who aims to question and challenge the nature of personhood, pothook, and reinvention—and write some ear-pleasing rhymes in the process.