#kinaara

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नजरिया बदल दिया

हमने तो अब हमें बुरा कहने वालो से किनारा कर लिया, क्योंकि हम तो आज भी वही है बस लोगों ने हमें देखने का नजरिया बदल दिया।… –Ravi Yadhuvanshi

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[cruxate]

I'm posting this because back in 2009 I was friends with one of the editors of Kinaara literary magazine (I still know her and all), which was a pretty new project, and she invited me to submit to this anthology collaboration project. Eventually I got word that my submission had been accepted and then much later there was some discussion of how to get a copy of the anthology to me since I was in the US and it was being distributed very locally in Kolkata (India). So anyway, I never actually got a copy as far as I'm aware (although I had been talking about getting a copy via my family in Kolkata), and it's kind of mysterious because I can't find any mention of this anthology on the Open Space India website, and I've sort of just always included it in my published-works resume because I think it happened? I just don't know if this publication actually exists anywhere??

Anyway, this is my potentially published poem that exists in perpetual limbo (seriously, being a writer/artist is weird sometimes):

viscera

upward from the skin of my feet, greying and insecure, patched and weaving, veins overstrung, ocean-flow and covered. i cover the skin of my lips, frozen over in memory of summer, crack, this sheen of wetness to freeze closer.

upward from the metal, rings tossed, marked by the corrosion of water-met solid: the grit of rust on tongue, the arch of teeth into gums. upward from the red-tinted world i see through sequins, this screen i do not know the word for;

upward.

upward from the press of colors mixed,  eyes fixed in spectrum, the unruly eyebrows with their foreign sweep. foreign as designer patches, brown and rough, "made to be fad- -ed," the ooze of thong, of ass, of coiled stomach. upward from this, these yellow popcorn smells of sector seventeen heyday.

like red sand and stories gunned into rough paper i tease memory, forgetting the slap of soft water and the rings around the plastic mugs, buckets. upward from the deepset stones of my floor, the whirs of fans against the sudden claustrophobia of shine.

it's all so new and strange these days i am my space, i am my space.  the cheap bedraggled curtains versus the lacquer, the certified departmentalstore goodbra. purple stains and mosquito bites. i am my space.

upward – you know the brown ring around the tube -- IVs running heat, frothing, to collect. i am my space.

upward from the patch, the stickers on walls, the posters, upward from muppets, nickelodeon, marykateandashley, upward from handmedown dresses, dreams of paris, tapes of abba, upward –

always running upward – i cover the skin of my lips, the skin of my feet, the skin of my hands, you look white, i cover i bare my indian skin, of course you're indian, i bare my collarbones i shrink inside my "ethnic" clothing, i weave through ready markets with half-heard language unlearned, i shrink inside my skin

this is my own space