get me out of here

paranoia

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The girl hanging from the ceiling
is a bird with a parachute, fishing
line strung around her ankles and
wrists and she is imagining herself
flying but she is too scared to
leave her bedroom.

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clay diyas bust on hard concrete / through the paper bag you were given / meant to swallow and digest loose colors / each fused in thin layers of dried paint / the fuschia flamingo on autumn evenings / and the sweet orange of motichoor ladoos / neon yellows and rich violet hues / the hearty teals / divine elegance / melt into wax pools / glittering in metallic paint / plastic jewels / but your fingers fail to wrap around them / for dirt and cobwebs weave / across the rounded curves of each clay pot / slid your thumbs / cracked before / Lakshmi’s rose feet immune / to heat / fire / and ice / how embarrassing! / when she sees your spoiled artifacts / curdled in such naive carelessness

Raah Pe Rehte Hain

On winding roads
Dad and me, back from Berkeley
weather bleak beneath autumn rain
the cars that glide freeways
quiet in noisy valleys;
But we listen to vintage albums
laced in sharp, though thick Hindi
the black and white hymns
echoing his childhood into mine
in low resolution remembrances; 
the optimistic rise
of the first two notes and the
bottomless drop of the drums
deep in our chests, nostalgia personified
on these winding roads.

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Green chilies burn craters into long pink plains / chewed logs blended in rice fields / they mingle with gold nuggets of dahl / and hairy ginger, it buzzes alongside the bubbling rivers that rebel in dissolved minerals / / Nature’s sore land seems to swell though / with every seed dodged in reluctant sweat / So how curious is it / to see them rise past the quelled summits of watered-down dahi / and through the delicate pinch of table salt / hailed from the peeling Morton cylinder itself / / These lustrous mines reveal more than rich flavor; / spooned graciously, green valleys will shred against ivory boulders / and the ghastly red bleeding through gajar and nimboo / oils so sour, will finally flush through the neighboring seas / kadhi littered with coriander tangle / / It is in these moments / I realize / home has flourished more vividly / in this rebellious terrain I host / than one could ever believe.

it’s not reflecting

endurance

recuperation haiku

speak so hush lil one
in five seven five, no rush
you’ll mind how to speak

Copper quiet

I chew rubber wire in an attempt to switch
the world off for five bitter seconds, to

hear the pang of thin icy lights on dry tile.
I wanna lean on fiber carpet, the static of

sheared yarn braising my skin, light and
indistinct. Transitioning into idyllic

nowhere, pixels moving beyond shut
eyelids and zrrr-ing feebly. And the

tapestry is full of them, ticks and fleas
sneaking through layers of flesh. I used to

fear the filth, the unwanted and crawling.
But now it’s the mites and smut that make

a home of my body, and I’m not really
alone. I keep chewing till I hit copper, till

I hit Lincoln, honest and rolled. I wonder
if I’ll die and become some string of

metal, soft and unified. Then, perhaps,
there’ll be silence without darkness.