Hang the bridal dress on the clothesline,

even if you have to do it with little binder clips,

and too much willpower. You never wanted

to wear it anyway. They called your body a temple—

What if you wanted it to be a bakery instead?

There is no direction in which life might go now;

the spouse is buried before they earned the title,

and the veil is now gliding with the wind, out of reach.

What do you do with the deities you swallowed,

hoping the rituals would stop? The questions never

end. Who makes a minister a minister? Will the

solitaire on your hand still be called a wedding ring?

The gods are now leaving your body, but you could

still have little choux kids, and send them to little

piping schools. You could do anything you wanted.

There is no direction in which life might go,

but that only means it can go anywhere.

You could go anywhere. You could be anyone.

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Phoenix Tesni (she/her) is a twenty-three year-old poet from New Delhi. A Best Small Fictions finalist, her works also appear in Surging Tide, Limelight Review,  Sage Cigarettes, Celestite Poetry, and many other places. Phee likes to dedicate her life to consuming & creating art, indulging in all forms of South-Korean multimedia, and petting as many cats as possible. You can find her at phoenixtesni.com or on Twitter/Instagram @PhoenixTesni.