Ephemera

by Neethu Krishnan ​

Crocheting through galaxies, knitting together the universe, they say, is a glowing spool of fiery gossamer. To seek out the estranged half, once entangled, forever bound, a glimpse, a dream, a touch, a voice, reaches out— a ribbon of ropy recognition, electric, obviating logic: Destiny, supplicating before which souls bleed into each other, hearts no longer organs, tormentors instead. Seeing past skin, sinew, bone, crash-landing on an island suctioned by a celestial pull they can’t defy, they succumb to the collapsing gravity—foreign yet so familiar—their gaze locked in eternal embrace even as the portal coughs the stitches of them out its other end. Eager to be ravaged again in another universe, yet another timeline, their dying embers, though mere stories, etch themselves in pockets of time, just so. They crackle to life on mere contact—flickering ghosts, their old vessels long gone, blackholed, now live wires, soul-memory reincarnates.

Neethu Krishnan is a writer based in Mumbai, India. She holds an MA in English and an M.Sc. in Microbiology and writes between genres at the moment. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Spectacle, Bacopa Literary Review, Tasavvur, Spoonie Journal, Seaside Gothic, Lucent Dreaming, and elsewhere. She is a 2022 Best of the Net poetry nominee and recipient of the Creative Nonfiction Award in Bacopa Literary Review's 2022 contest. Visit her online: @neethu.krishnan_ on Instagram or facebook.