Ananya Kharat is a writer based in the Chicagoland area, where she spends her days on LetterBoxd and making chais. A 2026 YoungArts Winner, as well as a Scholastic Medalist and commended winner in the 2025 Adroit Prizes, she is published or forthcoming in Polyphony Lit, SEXTET, MEARI, and others. Her instagram handle is @ananyakharatt. One day, she'll backpack across Europe.

                                        ii.
.. On the drive back we stopped at the Indiana Dunes for a smoke; Henry tells me this was
the first real beach he’d seen in his life; because Chicago made those things up; because
mostly all we’ve known is an electrical powerline maze and dreams of the Wild Wild West;
even now: a lone gas station on the asphalt and pot smoke crowding the flickering
OPEN sign; OPEN waters, Indiana; OPEN mouths, we start screaming; the back tire
getting all crossed out; half-naked, nobody can return the souvenir keychains;
Mia says there’s no way we live like this;

There’s no damn way that this,
this is it.

Volume 16.2, summer 26

Ananya Kharat

american spirits

                                        i.
                                                  ... That run down beach house paradise. In the water I want us to
                                                  learn how swimming works, get the melting shore out of our toes
                                                  and let the silver jewelry float, boil, gleam. Our bodies gleaming
                                                  like sea rats left to die tide-first. We could make these sandcastles
                                                  our homes— nail up carapace windows, shattered. Turn it over:
                                                  the belly of this mussel shell a faded blue oil smear. And look up:
                                                  it’s the same strained indigo as the horizon. The Pacific recycling
                                                  its wasteland. That breeze through our hair cutting blades to scalps.
                                                  The pinstriped red umbrella, above, twisting to triangles;
                                                                              I wonder if seasalt tastes the same as
                                                                                                           a pistolled split lip.          

                                                                                                            iii.
                                                                                                ... & a star-spangled banner is enough
                                                                                                             to make the bed.

                                                                                                Firefly worshippers, we rinse off
                                                                                                            the veranda’s bird shit &

                                                                                                cut our bodies into summertime patriots.
                                                                                               
                                                                                                Another July 4th in a middle class jacuzzi.
                                                                                               
                                                                                                Spilling Springsteen into red plastic,
                                                                                                              refill, after refill, after refill.

                                                                                                Back of the garage, dust, drunk american fags.
                                                                                                              Let’s say it again: wasted bomb-hungry faggots.

                                                                                                Motorcycle parts slicing our fingers to crosses
                                                                                                               & we ignore it, these bared teeth, throats.
                                                                                               
                                                                                                These prayers for selfish youth.
                                                                                               
                                                                                                These prayers for Johnny Cash,
                                                                                                God Bless Johnny Cash.

                                                                                      v.
                           The postcard I get from Henry from California from August after
                           he decided to go all the way back, get the miles on his car, get a babe and
                           a rented flat, get out, the fuck out, is a clean bright picture of Lake Michigan
                           in digital. Missing You says the first line, Missing The Cold. Over here Susie
                           flunked out and I heard David is now addicted to ketamine or at least
                           something very damning, but then again, aren’t all of us. Isn’t the only
                           reason we wake up to prove someone wrong. Or at least our fathers.
                           Or at least our selves. Or to keep the shiny green lawns brand new. Henry writes
                           Everyone is dead here just like home. Actually everyone is dead everywhere. Do you remember
                           that summer, when we were alive, I think probably that was it. I think we are stuck
                           in these immaterial synthetic daydreams. I think we
                           
                           don't know how

                           to love

iv.

             ... i look through the sprinklers
for rainbow-prismed      forgiveness

                             second hand second chances /
for the worst of us
                /
                                           the way the stars
are only human.
               the miracles of / expressway clouds,
                          rolling. lovers, the chevy seat

                                                                                     —hearts drumming like waves.

baby, we’re dying             on inland
chainsmokers      bar fights,

really the american way
                   /
really; i want too much
                   /
really— i want to tell
                           the truth

without having

              to

                           be honest