Conversation With a Promising Grown Man
by Boranya Choudhury, India. Second place in the Writory International Poetry Contest, April 2026, scored 91 out of 100.
CONVERSATION WITH A PROMISING GROWN MAN Tell me, will I remain voluptuous if I am nothing but carrion howling my life beyond the tip of a vulture’s beak, will that still make you hungry and come for me the way you did when I was just a kid— This is how I confront you in my sleep when the gnawing memories tighten their grip. How can I escape my childhood when you are living across just three doors in the neighbourhood? I bet you don’t even remember the programme we were watching that day on TV because your hands were too busy splattering lurid red, coaxing your territory eyes flickering vitriol over my stark body. Of course, who would believe a girl, let alone a child, because these stories are always meant to shush away in the dark. They say society has always been crueller to your kind— the deranged, the unhinged, the mentally challenged but clearly they haven’t been a seven year old once in their lifetime. — Boranya Choudhury
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