Richa Gupta is a sixteen-year-old at The International School Bangalore, India; she has an avid interest in poetry and creative writing, and has her works published in several literary journals, including New Plains Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, The Tower Journal and The Write Place at the Write Time. Richa also enjoys editing for Glass Kite Anthology and Polyphony H.S., and playing western classical piano in her leisure time.

Richa Gupta

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Ornament

She walks quickly, her slender legs trembling.
Shadows leer, imprinted on the surrounding alley walls,
shadows that jump out of hidden crevices, turning on her,
surrounding her-an innocent, lovely woman.
Stripped of protection, her flowers open to attack,
darkness dives in. A carmine river of liquid spills,
resigned beliefs follow in its wake. Her screams riddle the
eerie silence of a forgotten trail, her pale petals flay.
Then they go quiet, her shrieks dwindle to defeated moans.
The shadows leave her–a rose no more an entity of life.
Just an empty physique of impending demise,
of bygone beauty and sexuality. A bleeding stem.
For a void is all she has left–just the name of a sad
little victim. But what does she have to aspire for now...
other than an example of misfortune, another lost ornament?