After the Colors Returned to the World
Sambhavi Dwivedi | Poetry, Summer 2025
I started to go for long walks by the
lake, watch the purple bloom in the
sky as the sun burned into the water
with plumes of fire. The blades
of grass scratched against the sides
of my legs as the wind whistled
in my ears. I had never seen a green so lush
before, so alive. In those days, the memory
of home threaded in & out of my thoughts.
I had started to write again, next to my
awning window. I watched the flurries
float with the wind cutting through the fog.
In the afternoons, when the sun’s warmth
began to relieve the ache in my muscles,
I went grocery shopping after class
and squeezed the ripe, pale orange fruit,
pressed against their soft spots before
putting them in my basket. I welcomed
the small pieces of happiness; it had
been so long since I’d felt the crisp air
against the back of my neck. I pressed
the heels of my palms against my eyes
to watch the phosphenes whirl across
the inside of my eyelids. Ladybugs crawled
on my limbs, flashes of red ghosting
across my body. Blushed petals from cherry
blossoms twirled towards the ground,
fluttering against my skin as I shivered.
For so long, I had forgotten how to live,
festered in my own raw flesh.
I want you to feel the heat in my skeleton—
cleave my body and hold my light.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“I first started writing this poem nearly five years ago, when I finally decided what I really wanted, that what I always wanted was to write. It was my freshman year of college; I was lost in my life, and within myself. I didn't like where I was, and I didn't know what I was doing. In my eyes, the world had lost its color. And then I found poetry again. I've been writing since I learned how to, but this is the one piece that has irrevocably shaped my life, that has eternally fossilized that transformation from years ago. I can still feel the women who wrote this poem living inside of me.”
Sambhavi Dwivedi is an MFA candidate in fiction at NYU, where she is a Goldwater Fellow. A former Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee, her poetry is featured in The Westchester Review, MudRoom Magazine, Door Is A Jar, Crab Apple Literary, Parentheses Journal, The Ocean State Review and Midway Journal, and her criticism appears in Words Without Borders. She was a finalist for the 2024 Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest, and she is a recipient of an honorable mention for the Academy for American Poets' Enid Dame Memorial Poetry Prize. Her work can be found at bio.site/sambhavi.
After the Colors Returned to the World
Sambhavi Dwivedi | Poetry, Summer 2025
I started to go for long walks by the
lake, watch the purple bloom in the
sky as the sun burned into the water
with plumes of fire. The blades
of grass scratched against the sides
of my legs as the wind whistled
in my ears. I had never seen a green so lush
before, so alive. In those days, the memory
of home threaded in & out of my thoughts.
I had started to write again, next to my
awning window. I watched the flurries
float with the wind cutting through the fog.
In the afternoons, when the sun’s warmth
began to relieve the ache in my muscles,
I went grocery shopping after class
and squeezed the ripe, pale orange fruit,
pressed against their soft spots before
putting them in my basket. I welcomed
the small pieces of happiness; it had
been so long since I’d felt the crisp air
against the back of my neck. I pressed
the heels of my palms against my eyes
to watch the phosphenes whirl across
the inside of my eyelids. Ladybugs crawled
on my limbs, flashes of red ghosting
across my body. Blushed petals from cherry
blossoms twirled towards the ground,
fluttering against my skin as I shivered.
For so long, I had forgotten how to live,
festered in my own raw flesh.
I want you to feel the heat in my skeleton—
cleave my body and hold my light.
__________________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“I first started writing this poem nearly five years ago, when I finally decided what I really wanted, that what I always wanted was to write. It was my freshman year of college; I was lost in my life, and within myself. I didn't like where I was, and I didn't know what I was doing. In my eyes, the world had lost its color. And then I found poetry again. I've been writing since I learned how to, but this is the one piece that has irrevocably shaped my life, that has eternally fossilized that transformation from years ago. I can still feel the women who wrote this poem living inside of me.”
Sambhavi Dwivedi is an MFA candidate in fiction at NYU, where she is a Goldwater Fellow. A former Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee, her poetry is featured in The Westchester Review, MudRoom Magazine, Door Is A Jar, Crab Apple Literary, Parentheses Journal, The Ocean State Review and Midway Journal, and her criticism appears in Words Without Borders. She was a finalist for the 2024 Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest, and she is a recipient of an honorable mention for the Academy for American Poets' Enid Dame Memorial Poetry Prize. Her work can be found at bio.site/sambhavi.