1. what got you into writing?

initially, my father and a sparkly pink barbie notebook. seven years later, teen angst.

2. outside of wtw/prose, who are your biggest writing influences?

since we’re talking about loopholes, @flowercryptid on instagram. i think that their writing is heavy in the best possible way. i also feel that my writing style changes drastically with each reread of veronica roth’s ‘carve the mark’.

to be honest, my writing is influenced more by specific whats rather than whos. lately, i have been starting a lot of my pieces after looking at moodboards i’ve made on pinterest.

3. what’s the significance behind your profile picture(s)?

i’m very indecisive about my profile picture, but the current one is what the inside of my head looks like right now. i love hot pink and how it works in photographs, so there you are.

4. top fifteen favorite books - go. (if you don’t know what exactly are your favorite fifteen, just name twenty you like.)

um i haven’t read any book in the past five months, so this list might not be very accurate, but i’ll try my best.

in no particular order:

the aforementioned ‘carve the mark’ by veronica roth because i love the complexity of each character,

‘the imaginary’ by a.f. harrold because it was my comfort book when i was a kid,

i can’t deny that the ‘harry potter’ series has been close to my heart even though i will fight jkr,

‘the maze runner’ series by james dashner as the quality of writing left me consistently speechless with each new book and i’m just a huge sucker for sci-fi,

‘the sisterhood of the travelling pants’ series by ann brashares even though i think i’ve grown out of it, because it was the first time i had read about protagonists with character flaws,

‘13 little blue envelopes’ by maureen johnson because it showed me a girl being independent and making her own decisions,

‘i read a lot of fanfiction so this question is giving me a headache’ by me.

5. what’s the significance behind your username?

pandas were my (ex) friend’s favorite animals and she used to call me moti, which means fat in hindi.

6. any particularly stupid quote that you nevertheless love?

‘doh minute rukh mai paanch minute mein aata hoon.’

7. how would you define your current writing style? do you think this is your set style, or are you still evolving?

my current writing style is a lot whimsical; i use experiences and take them out of context to form nice imagery. it’s a lot stream-of-consciousness like and consists of a lot of ranting. i think i am still evolving and always will be. i actively go searching for something new to embody when i’m bored of how i write.

8. favorite song(s)? favorite song(s) to listen to ironically?

*opens spotify* here we go, lads (please don’t judge me for my admittedly bad taste in music)

‘midnight appointments’ by marlenai, ‘partners in crime’ and ‘die alone’ by finneas, ‘fallingforyou’ by the 1975 (basically all of their songs, i started listening to them a couple weeks ago and haven’t stopped), ‘city of stars’ from the ‘la la land’ soundtrack, ‘channel orange in your living room’ by charlie burg, ‘never-ending summer’ by wes reeve, ‘honey’ by coastal club, ‘only the brave’ by louis tomlinson, amongst others.

i also listen to one direction at times, but it’s not ironically.

9. a common writing error or trend that annoys you?

bad grammar. writing like t h i s excessively. improper punctuation while using dialogue.

10. should pineapple be on pizza?

i absolutely despise pineapple even as it is, so a firm no.

book of the universe,

how fascinating is it to be made of capricious crisscrosses, ideations

like microscopic waste bisected to ease suspicion;

how lonely must the elements get in their habitual states--

a wall crashing on chafed rock, jumping onto its

snow-covered peak. refuging

the tremulous wind currents that travel with their stolen suitcases;

how mighty must you feel to be called creator & creation, to watch salt

rings increase is size yourself, but still shrinking, shrinking &

shrinking. to know that when an embrace pulls away, so do your

granite cells. to be compared with the three-toed stomp. to choose

to know & behold & ignore. to not know what makes the birds taller

than the trees, to not know of possessions and grey-paged

contempt. to have to agree with what the mud-creatures claim to sell--

oval cakes opaled, yet dispensable. to know of a dandelion

that looks away at this dissonance:

how low must you feel, to be an amalgamation of rubbery disposals,

to have seen, but not heard the diamond elephants. to be so menial

as to measure centimetres using the width of one fingernail, to know

how much you can sell it for to the butcher.

to be condensed wood, liquefied

iterations, to know when the ever-accommodating quota has been

finished.

red as a snowstorm, white as blood, these mindless congestions

like darts set away their pen-nibbed victories as tricolored masses

sink deeper still. did you know that plastic spines are bendable, baroque

tears holdable & mat-rubbed feet washable? despite this,

chequered consequences remain as illustrious as monotonous duty,

yet you stall. deeper and deeper still, body masses give way to final

convictions as machine parts slam themselves on silt

roads like pages tucked away and artwork made from bark. like faulty

reminisces at a conjecture, newspaper clippings cut themselves out

& fly into the frames mounted on wallpapered lookouts as though

warnings have never been deterrent. the wrappers from the

marshes offer their wrinkled bodies as proof, to be forced

to refuse them. to walk steadily loessed land and be held captive

by the beleaguered soil. to accept this fate in your bubble-wrapped

ignorance.

#poetry

goddess; you are made of intertwined branches of olive trees with bougainvillea for hair; you have soft, pliant flesh and the blood of the ocean raging through your veins, irascible winds confined to form your eyes, and icicle beauty chained to your skin. you are blinding, made of dirt and dust but also the secrets we bury in it. you are tolerant.

but these cracked ribs get to you. their splinters stab your skin, lodge in your throat as you spit out torrents of spewing lava. you wish for sprouted flowers in metal cages, for forest whispers in place of the cacophony that surrounds you. and as your lilting voice stumbles over familiar words, you feel as though you might as well crumble to ash, because the earth is lifting you up, higher and higher. you see your creation and your regret laid out before you, one sparse and one decorous, both undeserving.

and suddenly your skin is gnawed, decayed with melting yellow pooling at your feet. the thunderstorm overhead rages on as you disappear.