Rushtri Chatterjea
Bio
poet, warrior, babe magnet
Stories (10/0)
I'm close friends with the devil
They say that the devil is a fallen angel, shunned from god’s grace, that he was slaughtered by a ten-armed goddess for wanting too much, that he is pride and sin incarnate, that he stole the wives of good men, that his existence defies god, that he has three heads and hides in the cracks of belief.
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
When the stony nighttime is especially quiet, and the apartment is awfully lonely, and I haven’t talked to anyone in a few days, I think about Santa Claus. And the tooth fairy, and Krishna, and Solomon, and the Easter Rabbit, and Moses. I’ve read the scripture, I’ve been on my knees in a field, I’ve repented, I’ve looked for love in every sunrise, I’ve looked into the cosmos and wondered what was looking back. They say faith is difficult, they ask why we should believe, what is religion but a cool superhero story and a set of rules, where does god live? In the end are we all alone in this universe? What did the Greeks know that we don’t?
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
what the brain remembers
The brain remembers strange things. I often think about how the violets smelled that night, but I don’t remember your breath in mine. I remember the second day of lockdown, the metallic taste in my throat, breaking my first cellphone, plucking out the full, open buds in the rose garden, the billboard signs we pass on the way to Boston, the earl gray feel of a late sunset, the active shooter protocol in a too full classroom.
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
in another life
we sit at the kitchen table together, you’re holding my hand, painting my nails a steel shade, the color of your eyes in the rusty twilight, I keep glancing at you through strands of wet hair, glowing in the fluorescent light of the refrigerator, every now and again you kiss the inside of my wrist.
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
playing dead
when everything is weaponized, you learn to play dead. you learn to cry without making noise. you learn to swallow bitter things. you take the parts of yourself, the living parts and you cut and prune and you stamp on them until they are no longer living, until you can't recognize them anymore.
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
Kindred Spirits
The Laurel to my Hardy, the Diana Barry to my Anne Shirley is my best friend, Violet. We listen to Bach cantatas on vinyl on my dining room floor. It takes me weeks to write the pages she edits in a day. She knows exactly how many pumps of blueberry syrup I put in my black coffee. Our friends call us the Gatsbys; her beauty gives me symmetry, her intellect gives me mortality.
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
On Opposites
My life seems to be full of oxymorons. Bittersweet memories pouring through the clear glass of the vase of time, picking out an Indo-Western prom dress, the cruel kindness of the 4pm winter sunset, making anti-jokes in the cafeteria with your frenemies, liquid marble in the eyes of my first love, a bottle of 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner, eating grape Jell-O with a fork, writing original copy for a pizza ad in the local newspaper, the dull roar of my parents’ navy BMW I was never allowed to drive, a little black and white cat curled up at the foot of the bed, paper towels on the kitchen floor soaking in spilled orange soda, a comfortable misery in going to college in the same town as your high school.
By Rushtri Chatterjea4 months ago in Poets
testimony of summer nights, of cherry tarts
summertime makes one believe in god, the way one believes in a perfect slice of cherry tart, in the way it’s heaped up with the sweet cream, rivaling the sour of the cherry, the sweet bite of existence that hides in the crust, the way the unhappy look for something to believe in, whether it’s in a golden and white sunset, burnt and scarred, ready for nighttime, or the sharp of an empty liquor bottle;
By Rushtri Chatterjea2 years ago in Poets