Hand-me-down Happiness by Devaki Devay

Tumbling through the honey tea, the crystal cup, orange sun
Scatters over the dining table.
These shattered remains of the patterned glass–
Are my dinner. I drink along with them
The clean blue light bursting beneath my dark screen, unblinking, a much safer
Sort of sky.
I thumb and scroll and thirst and bite. The tablet
Crumbles beautifully, spiderwebs, curls
Like a flattened chandelier.
This is my dinner. It is now enclosed
In my envelope of sticky skin. I have
Overeaten.
I press my lips against
This last glass window, this toilet’s rim,
Vomit to the people, deliver
My filling. I am lighter, now starving.
This is my guilt
Pleading innocent,
My desperate defense.

Devaki Devay is a sophomore at a California community college, and has worked as a Managing Editor and Teaching Assistant for the student-run paper. In their free time, they work at a local preschool. Their writing mainly grapples with the aftermath of abuse, a fractured identity, and loneliness as it is felt by diaspora populations.