60 MILLIGRAMS
banana slices cut
with a plastic knife
spread on a paper plate
beside a spoon of Nutella
and two Milanos
she chews hears the saliva
smack in her mouth
gags polish-chipped nails
peel clammy palm clasps
three extended-release
amphetamine capsules
white-flaked lips part
crinkly curls crumble
rice paper cratered skin
and hollow nicotine eyes
swallowed whole
with Muscle Milk Light
for faster absorption
12 to 14 hour half-life
smooth uptake
without the withdrawal
two hours till she forgets
her appetite taps the scale
and sets to zero
steps on 125 and 5’5”
fingernails dig
into the protruding
curve of collarbone
tremble like EKG lines
pulse spiking teeth
grinding from the uppers
Anuradha Bhowmik is a Bangladeshi-American poet and writer from South Jersey. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at Virginia Tech. She graduated with a B.A. in Women’s & Gender Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015. Anuradha has been awarded a Grin City Collective Emerging Artist Residency, as well as scholarships to the New York State Summer Writers Institute and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Boiler, Lunch Ticket, After the Pause, Star 82 Review, Lumen, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere.