Never One of Them

Leena Rajkotia

after Richard Siken

The one who holds a gun but doesn’t shoot is Jesus. A small wound is not worthy of being a scar. The
giant is always the villain. He slept on an iron bed until he was struck by an axe. He was the last of his
kind. The guilty are doomed. The innocent are crying. Lady Liberty was greenfaced as she told
everyone to go home. Home became a place to think of between footsteps. Home became a place to
carve into the smooth flesh of a baobab tree. The creator with no eyes is a genius. The deaf pianist is the
best one. The unsaid whisper is the only remembered one. I was the widow of words never spoken; I
clung to them until I was left with a handful of fleeing vapor. I begged them to stay. I made them a
coffin out of the family dining table and flung coins at it until my arms grew numb. They wanted
nothing to do with it. Some trapped things scrabble against walls and cupped hands, wearing their
jolting bodies thin. Some trapped things sit still and chained and content. The carnival elephant is
sluggish as it is sugared by smog. The zoo tiger is lethargic as it is consumed in a camera flash. The
circus cobra is placid as it is enveloped in some charmer’s false spell. As a child, I held a toad after
snatching it from the rich mud. Its pale throat throbbed in panic, body moist with piss and grime. I let
it go. I wanted it back. Pinocchio wanted to be real. The real boy wanted to be a machine. The sobbing
unicorn wanted strength. The retching lion wanted purity. I was both of them, but never one of them.
I trapped them in a cheap ballpoint pen. I was awake with the alley rats, scribbling a list of facts I
wasn’t sure were true anymore.

Leena Rajkotia is a freshman at Interlochen Arts Academy. She has been published in the Red Wheelbarrow, her school's on campus literary journal. She has also been published in 1455 Young Poets' Anthology. She has received recognition from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.