Teen Sequins 2021: Suraj Singareddy, Age 18

Antinous

Inguinal desire for moonskin against mine pools in tides and fingernail spaces too soft to
speak.

At least you have one.

Unborn spaces imagine only fossils filling them as marble is re-leased from its prison and
returns - gives the chisel.

 All I have is you and touch.

What did you sacrifice for your teacher to build you - the altar? I worry about numbers
and consent and time after death.

They thought they would let us have it.

Take my body for the same and walk out of purgatory.

But they didn’t have it either.

Carve out my hair with your jawline sharp with memory till I am born as living stone -
polished/unexcavated - the better match now.
 
They said it killed them, but really it turned their hands cold and mineral on my
shoulders.
 
We are both ghosts in heaven. How odd you don’t die.
 
Maybe it was their ultimate expression.
 
I worry about standards and race and time and eyes.
 
They wanted to become all that was unquestionable.
 
Come. I decide it stops at the end.
 
Now they are the creators, and we are at their mercy. This place proves it.
What do they house here other than holiness?

Suraj Singareddy (he/him) is a student and writer from Atlanta-ish, Georgia.
​He is passionate about pistachio shortbread, scarves, and gay YA novels. 

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