Crossing Over/Love Poetry to Make Amends

You are young. 

Softer than you think, a 

Mountain range made by a seven year old 

Curves and soft lines, 

Pastel shades running amok

Not perfect, but 

Loved,

Stuck on your mother's pinboard-heart. 

You are young. 

The sun falls quieter. It is Delhi, it is hot

In a way no other place is 

It is Saturday

In a way no other day is 

And the sun is streaming in, making little storms 

out of the specks. 

There is nothing to do except admire the blankness of the sun

Turning the floors golden. 

Turning the bed stands golden. 

Turning the ends of your fingers pink,

Your cheeks golden, 

You do not know it 

But you are a lion cub, 

transforming. 

You are young. 

You stay up full nights, re-viewing people fall in love 

In the cheapest of ways. 

There is nothing novel about love

Or its massive potential,

yet each second watched tells you the familiar ways

We invent to be made softer, made more tactile;

the familiar ways 

In which we always search for lost objects. 

and what do you do with lost things 

except 

make vague maps and ways

to remember? 

***

Found:

A bubble blown in a child's face. 

A leaf turning crimson where Autumn doesn't happen. 

A bottle of perfume you only remember my scent. 

The white flowers left after sudden rain. 

A dog sniffing your hand, wagging her tail. 

A poem you copy out because it 

made the world slow down 

and made you want to do something with your hands. 

Found:

The sound of laughter as the sun disappears and the cool breeze breaks making the branches break into waves and a make a brown dog circle his tail and two coffee cups on a red table tap dance and shake and you realize it was you, the sound of laughter was you, and all this magic and not for a second did you think that

Everything in the world loves you.

Vacation

We are on vacation. We are dressing by turn in our AirBnb.

My mother takes out our clothes. She irons out the creases.  She hangs them at the bathroom door. She budgets well, that is why she said “I’ll do the cooking”, so she does the cooking. She measures out Rice, watches it boil while chopping up garlic and ginger. She stirs the sambar she got for free from the Indian Deli. She hands my Father his glasses. She calls out my name, thinking I am asleep. I do not Stir. She is rinsing the dishes. She packs dry lunch that she knew “would last us the trip”. She budgets well, that is why she said “I’ll do the cooking”, so she spent the day before our trip chopping, frying, rolling, roasting.

She hands my Brother’s hand outstretched from the bathroom, a towel. My Father asks for his Medicines. She puts tea to boil and asks him “to take it out of the blue suitcase”. He cannot find it. She steps over the bags in disarray and hands him his medicine, taken out with a Clean Sweep. She asks him to watch the tea. The tea is about to boil over. My Father does not know how to turn the stove off. He tells my mother “I don’t know how to turn this off.” My mother steps over The bags in disarray and turns off the stove. She calls out my name, thinking I am asleep. I draw the Covers Closer.

She pours out his tea in a mug and passes it to him. My Father sees his WhatsApp messages. Bored, he lifts his spectacles and turns to my mother’s messages. He tells her that her Father has sent her a message. She asks what about as she takes out detergent. My Father tells her what it is about, but she is half-listening. She calls out my name, thinking I am asleep, and tells me to “Go bathe after bhaiyya”. She calls out my Brother’s name, noticing that the shower has gone silent, and tells him to leave his clothes so that she can wash it. My Brother paces out, says

“Fast Fast Fast get ready Fast”

To me and that is when I Finally Disembark from the little attic I was sleeping in.

Half an hour later, my mother is waiting for my Brother and Father to leave so that she can change her clothes for our vacation. She wears her jeans, blue top, and begins putting away the blue bags in disarray. She tells me “Go downstairs and tell them I am coming” before borrowing my earrings and kajal and lipstick. As I leave the door, she is brushing out her hair. I climb down the flight of stairs to meet my Brother fuming. “We are FIFTEEN minutes late!”

My mother follows in two minutes, carrying the boxes of lunch she made earlier. My Brother turns to my mother and

Scowls.

“What Took You So LONG?"

My Mother says nothing.

Dreamcatcher/Lullaby for a Friend with Nightmares

Dreamcatcher/Lullaby for a Friend with Nightmares

The night has broken in, like a thief
And entered through the window,
Held you hostage
In your own bed, and is making you watch it turn
Your room into the shade of blue that the night likes. 

Yesterday we sat, unfurling ourselves like orange pieces
Today you draw yourself tighter, saving the unfolding
For when you are asleep,
Your limbs hanging loose, your eyelashes curled tight.
A voodoo doll controlled in the way the night likes.

You know those stories in which you fall asleep
And your toys come to life?
Your are sleeping and so is your room, but you are in two rooms
And when you wake, you will tell me about this other room you
Were pulled into because that is what the night likes.

You are fourteen again and racing barefeet
Until you watch yourself become a dandelion.
You are six again and feeding the wolves
Until you are sixteen and the one feasting.
You are twenty again and naked on a metro
Until you are twenty and awake again and googling "exhibitionism".
You think about the dreams about sinking, and wonder what if you were born
Landlocked, instead of salted by the sea.
What would the night like?

Yesterday you woke up, and felt your paperweight heart sink.
Yesterday you woke up, and felt your heart punched and filed away.
Yesterday you woke up, drunk on some amnesiac
Yeaterday you woke up, drunk on some aphrodisiac
Each time turning to the other side,
Each time muttering angrily:
Who knows what the night likes?

Tonight I will curl by your bed, hissing like a cat
At this burglar of time, this villain of light,
This absconder, this overstaying guest, this red tapist who refuses
To tell you if tomorrow, there will starlight.
Tonight, I will be mosquito net, lampshade, ghostly comrade,
Tonight I will hold the night by the collar
And tug every time it brings a shadow upon you.
Tonight I will orbit you like the moon, and bare my teeth
In a sinister grin, just the night turns dark,
No matter what the night likes.

You are asleep.
Here, your heart and light squarely cut
Here, your thoughts breaking beams in your body
Here your skin on fire, here your breath of water,
Here, you becoming the music, the dance,
the disco light too cliché for the day
But exactly what the night likes.