Bhavika Sicka is an emerging writer from Kolkata, West Bengal, and is currently pursuing an MFA at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She is a fiction reader for Barely South Review. Bhavika has been a finalist for the Write India contest, and her work has appeared in Arkana, Crab Fat Magazine, and Jabberwock (the literary journal of the Department of English, Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University).
My second sleep, where red, white and blue are burning,
the ashes gleaning and glinting as they die.
I wake to the carmine rays of dawn
and fall asleep to the sound of fireworks outside.
I cradle the ivory dove in its mourning,
whispering, “Am I alive? Am I alive?”
