Everything/Disrupting the Butterflies.

for Vidushi 

Last night before I feel asleep I saw purple butterflies dancing in front of my eyes
And in the morning the yellow flowers were shaking and I saw the proboscis of black butterflies
And when I was mixing red paint, there were pink, white, red butterflies swirling
And at the foot of my bed there is a lion cub illustration that puts butterflies
In my head when there are no flowers.

We have not smelt flowers in a long while.
Gardenia, say.
Say Dahlia, say carnations, say pansy, say camellia, say daisy, say dandelion, say dandelion, say
dande lion.
And above the lion cub is a swirl of colours that seems accidental,
But they are to fool butterflies who haven't smelt flowers
in a long while.

Imagine the lepidopterist, who cuts up butterflies, telling himself
quick
preserve the colour
preserve the scent
preserve the powder
preserve the abdomen
preserve the wings
and preserve the colour.

You take photos of our food, and ask for a brownie and a charger.
'Aren't you worried about your battery running out?'
You say, watching my phone blank out.
'I'm paranoid about my battery running out.'
'That's okay.'
I say.
That's okay.
I know you'd preserve the colour anyway.

And above the swirl of colours
Is someone trying to capture someone jumping into a puddle but
Catching motion requires a net,
With spaces as offerings to
the Chance of Losing Everything.
Ask the artist.
Ask the butterfly.

You sleep in the train, and in the autos.
You sleep with your specs on, and they move as the train does.
I cannot hear the flapping of wings in your head,
But it is loud enough to let you sleep over the hammering of the train.
Sometimes your sister grips my hand,
Because she can't hear me over the sound of her heart hammering.
Some people have butterflies in their stomach,
Her butterflies fly higher.

We walk to a bookstore and find a woman with ears like butterfly wings
Who pulls 43 books out with the speed
Of a butterfly's wings beating.
we ask her
what she does
how does she live
what is this magic
She takes care of her cat, she says.

Later, I watch as you lay still next to a cat,
With an asymmetrical, winged smile.
Two girls at the cat shelter look at me quizzically.
"Cats take care of her", I say.
They look at me.
"what is this magic?"

They painted the walls lavender the year I came to live here.
I spent a year staring at the colour.
They were supposed to change the colour that summer,
but they didn't.
In the winter,
There were butterflies on the floor,
Who dove into the walls, expecting to
seep in the nectar of life,
But found themselves dead.
The walls, they said.
The walls, they promised flowers.

And above the puddle-hopping,
There is nothing at all,
Except for a lavender wall.
But before I left, that summer, you gave me a green book
And that said
'Everything is art.'

Say lavender, say lavender, say lavender
Say la wonder.
So I stare at the walls until they appear-
Lilac, mauve, violet, purple.

This is my Everything.
Ask the artist.

Ask the butterfly.

Things I'll Tell My Children About My Childhood Home

When the lights went out, we came to life.
We were always sitting of the edge of shadows,
Waiting for the light to break, 'Load-shedding' we called it.
We lit the darkness in little candle flames
And ate from a single plate by a single light.
Even at five, I knew where the candles were kept,
And that darkness meant candles which meant stories.
We laughed and talked without looking at each other
Like we had learnt the maps of each other's faces by heart.
Even now, when I need a story, I need darkness
To have it come to light.
Load-shedding, we called it.

The houses were always in primary colours.
Every evening, for eleven minutes, the sky would be
Yellow in the middle, pink at the edges, and
We'd wait until the houses would start shining,
Yellow in the middle, pink at the edges.
Every time my mother found a colour pastel scrawl
On the pristine white walls,
I'd blame the sky for seducing children
Into acting the drama of eleven minutes
In eleven untidy seconds.

The pond was marmalade because what else could it be?
The sofa set was a castle because what else could it be?
My mother's double bed was an archaeological digging site because what else could it be?
And I was the best girl ever,
Because what else could I be?

When it would rain, each house turned into a island.
For seven days, we would look down from the verandah and hear
In the crashing of the rain:
Holiday, holiday, holiday.

And on the seventh continuous day,
there would be fishermen, ferrying
Us travellers, explorers, paired animals,
From shore to shore.
We never saw the fishermen except on that seventh day,
And one rainy evening, I read about fish that slept in the soil until rain,
And I wondered as I saw them, the next day, singing, shining in the rain,
If the authors forgot to add '-ermen'.

We'd wait until we heard the jingle of their nets;
Little, scurrying fish jumping into their little, scurrying vessels
And sail into the sunset, in this tide of this temporary ocean.
We'd return, world-weary and hagridden,
And state wisely to our parents:
'He was right, Magellan.'

There's very little that goes perfectly
Against the backdrop of a purple evening.
I got a boyfriend here once, and he seemed wrong.
I got an almost boyfriend once, and he seemed wrong.
Once I got two kittens home, who played in front
Of a television on static,
And they seemed wrong.
So I cushioned myself into the purple sky and thought to me,
'Thank God I cannot be seen.'

There was always a new summer, and always the pond,
Always a litter of puppies, always a lost frog,
Always tadpoles in the stream nearby and
Always dead earthworms in the muggy field,
Always the crow hatchlings on the same telephone pole,
Always a new summer, and brief reminders that the day was circular
And the year was always whole.

This time was the last time I returned.

I found a lane I never visited in my nineteen years.

Because there were other boundaries I was breaking,
I broke into a run
And I found an unexpected wall,
And in its middle,
I found an unexpected sun.