original sin by Thanisha Chowdhury (Virginia)

Morning: waxen. This is the story of
your undoing, of chants ashening your tongue--
tell me, have you ever come close to
prayer? When you mourn your pulped knees
he tells you how this, too, is a metaphor

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​river as throat, throat as garden. When
your hands hit the earth you forget how
it swallows you, but you remember
these molten walls. This is the story of
the end. That is to say, this is you,
plucking rot from the back of your mouth,
the horizon pregnant with a sun
you don’t recognize. How sweet is the abscess
that once bore sin. This is the story of
the fallen fruit that never struck ground.
After all, what is worship if not
the chest torn open? How much blood
until you shed your skin for
holiness?

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Thanisha Chowdhury is a Bangladeshi-American writer from Northern Virginia. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writings Awards and she is the EIC of Paper Crane Journal. When she is not writing, Thanisha enjoys playing the Sims 4 and crocheting frog hats.