but tonight he is alive, and in the north

I envy the banyan by the river

How he merely shakes his arms

And green flails off his embrace

He doesn't have to think twice

To nudge a root and let it coil

Around his wrinkled trunk

And by the time he asphyxiates

Beneath his own mortality

A turbaned man

Guides a puckered hand

Toward an ornamental mirror.

Intricate wires coiled around

A maze that casts my face; I think

I recognize her from somewhere,

Someplace she hasn't been in years.

The coils appear to twist and turn,

Their gems herding the sun

Right into my reflection, I gasp.

For a moment I glimpse a swatch of

The faintest cerulean along my cheek,

My lips nearly upturned,

And then it vanishes,

As I realize,

A barefoot tramp upon my street,

An infant bouncing on her hip,

Her tattered blouse rings loose with coins

From well-fed, self-assured men.

With fives and tens and earfuls,

She wishes sons to passersby,

Then folds her fallen fortune

Back into her weary breast.

I wonder at her eyes

Brown, almost just like mine.

Had she been born as me,

Perhaps I’d have been better

Kinder, wiser, and not as blind.

Yet all I do is stand and think,

And watch her slowly turn

I won’t hide behind a screen

or press myself into proof

of something that never should have been.

I’ll do what I dreamed at eight

and was warned of at nine.

Whether I hang in the sky

I used to stare through for hours,

or swallow the quiet colors

waiting in my bedside drawer,

I don’t know.

I won’t cry.

I won’t write the note

I’ve memorized since ten.

I won’t say goodbye

to the friend I made at eleven.

I won’t even count to twelve.

One.

Two.

Three.

They drape me in white,

Adorned in marigolds and roses.

My lips flushed with silence,

And eyes kohled with slumber

With chants in the courtyard, I rise

Time ticking towards the inevitable

But for now, I am safe

Once more on my father's shoulders

The air heavy with departure,

I heave a sigh, as the flames soar

And red trickles down my brow

Crawling on all fours,

my palms scrape the earth,

pink and putrid

and plastered with muck.

I beg

and beg

and beg for love.

A head too small,

a heart too big,

a face only fondled by mother.

I slither in maddening hunger,

satiated only

by flesh that is none but my own.

I count down to my end

like quick slashes on the whetstone.

And the glint in his eyes,

the only love

I ever got

in this lifetime,

Knotted to the corners of my lips,

It weighs me down

Heavy with the remains

Of things I could never be.

Afraid to look up, afraid

To measure skies I can't soar,

Clouds swollen with arrogance

And rain I’ll never touch.

Branching from my fig,

My limbs snap

And so do I,

Falling into a void

Hollowed by the lack of me.

It gnaws at my insides,

Leaving me echoing

With a sound caught between

A mother pushing out her sin

And a daughter drowning in

The puddles she used to jump

Now deep enough to swallow her.

I wallow in this fantasy,

In a world I wish

I opened my skin, let warmth seep into the earth.

I waited through winter,

waited for hummingbirds

to rise from their torpor.

When soft moss wraps

the carvings of my epitaph,

when the wind lifts the grime

settled into my skin,

when the river of grief

meanders into the sea.

When a beetle carries the last of me

to his garden, and I bloom,

a dahlia cupped in his palms.

Nostrils pinched shut

And eyes wide open

Drenched in the tranquil

Elixir of life

My father washed away all his sins.

The ice cold drop and the

Warmth of his blood

A brew to erase

Every shade of grey.

He rose from the water

In an angel's shroud, perhaps.

With a resignation

No man could muster.

But he never knew

The greatest sin of all

Lay dormant, waiting to resuscitate

The monster he became.

In the Ganges he went,

My father,

And washed away all his sins.

In the Ganges, he went

My father,

Pious, pure, pristine

Doused in crimson

Weeping an elixir that

Flows in the Ganges

A pardon of their sins

A relic of their love

To fill the void

And mend the cracks

But her shriek has blared

The siren of doom

Rising from her penumbra

She is the sun

And not as forgiving

As the goddess they worship

She screams and screams

Until their drums pierce

And truth bleeds from scratches

From her thrashing hands

A child born of rage

Wind in our hair and salt on our lips

We make sandcastles on the beach

A gum wrapper and a soda cap

And a darling home for us each

And the sun fumes with envy

For your eyes are all that I see

The fluttering of your lids is every

Dawn and dusk for me

The music in my heart thumps

A crescendo, as my fingers thread

Through yours, a silent promise

To never leave, that goes unsaid

Perhaps the sun holds a grudge

And the moment, it fleets by

You in the ocean's hammock

Lulled into sleep, so blue and wry

And I think, the ocean is cruel

But crueler is that gale

That takes our sandcastles away

And not a soul to tell the tale

So in a life after, or after maybe

When the ocean has aged still less

We'll make sandcastles on the beach

When is the time to die?

As an infant, pink and breathless

Strangled by your own

Mother's umbilical cord,

Making a womb itself your grave?

Or as a child, a ball of hope

Innocence echoing in

Every word you speak?

Your life waiting with outstreched arms,

A ghost of a grin on her face?

Or a young man, strong and brave

Shouldering grief and pain

The world in your palms and

Then suddenly, you in hers?

Or old and wrinkled, having lived your life

Orphaning hands that held your own

And leaving a void that,

Swallows them whole?

When is the time to cross the bridge?

When is the time to cease the heart

And halt the ones that pump your name?

and pretend to be dying

Then the neighbors will all come in

to gape at me, and perhaps, he will come with them.

When he comes, I won't need a doctor,

he knows why I am ill.

A tickle on my neck

Was it a caress? Or an attempt

To suck the crimson off my skin

I guess I'd never know

I didn't hesitate a bit

To brush you off like lint

And just like that you fell

Lifeless before my gaze

Had you fanned your wings

You would have got a day

Or two to live, perhaps

But you didn't, was it fate?

Or unwavering resolve

What went wrong?

Who broke the heart

I wasn't sure you even had

I'd give a million reasons

Even a bug's heartache

To justify my nerve

To befell a depraved sin

And with my filthy hands

I will pray and grieve and give

The greatest ode I can

Hand-in-hand they saunter

Through a carpet of leaves

None trodden black

Their shoulders heavy

With the weight of books

None yet of the world

The sun smiling down

Not yet a ball of fury

The birds still chirping

Their blood still pure

With no radio waves

Pumping through their veins

The ocean serene

Not hiding the wrath

Of its waves, no capsizing

Ships, no destroyed homes

No forests turned into

A mammoth furnace

No bridges falling, no

Children crying while

Their mothers make

The atomic bombs they

Will greet in a fortnight

No people dying, still land

Spared to bury the corpses

Oh, they're safe

Many people fear death

But I fear the wait

I can hear it ticking by

And I can see it on your face

Pick me up on your shoulders

Let us both see the parade

But I'm not five

And you're too frail

I miss when I believed in forever

When death seemed only but

A fable to put me to sleep

There is so much I don't know

Your boyhood, your dogs

The way you used to play

So I put my head to your chest

Too scared to live the moment

That soon will be nothing

But a soul crushing ache

I beg you, don't go