sad girls bleed hot words, by Saachi Gupta

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

This book is a study in coping, in recovering from all the poisonous forms that love can take when we let it. With queerness and a loss of identity at its centre, sad girls bleed hot words is where friendship, romance and sexuality intersect, getting all tangled up within each other to make life worse, but also somehow better. It is, above all, a tribute to ambiguity in relationships, and the realization that love is more than just romance, and heartbreak is more than just the end of a relationship. sad girls bleed hot words showcases heartbreak seeping into every part of one's life, controlling every decision a person makes in the hopes of finding a way out.

It is an ode to the love and destruction that can come from something unnamed, exploring themes of addiction, mental illness, sexuality, friendship, and identity. Using a starkly feminine voice, the poems in the book become progressively surer of their unhappiness, as if the poet is settling into her heartbreak, volatility and new lack of identity. As the book progresses, she goes from questioning what went wrong to questioning if anything will ever not go wrong. In fits of desperation, she seeks out ways to feel momentarily better; taking us back to the first line, reminding us that this book is a study in coping.

Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Saachi Gupta is a 21 year-old writer and student, along with the founder of Push up Daisies—a platform that normalizes conversations surrounding grief and death—and Moonflower COVID Relief, a student-run non-profit that raised over INR 100,000 for COVID relief in collaboration with organisations and creatives around the world. Saachi has previously worked with Gaysi Family and The Luna Collective, and her writing primarily revolves around culture, identity, love and loss. Her work has been featured on platforms including Malala Fund, Write the World, Adolescent Content, and Brown History.