Wanderling❁

held back

 

---

the maker of my own ruin

is in the mirror

begging someone else to change

never considering

that I can be the first

to change instead.

I can drown anger

with honeyed love

the maker of sweetness

from empty words.

the maker of my own paradise

speaks in a drum roll

growing from the heart.

---

 

 

untitled

 

---

"no!"

she claws skyward through my gut

rip in the stomach

wound beneath the chest

scratch in my throat, make me cry blood.

her upward retribution

is searching for the shaft of light

the one that breaks up any

gathering of tiny conspiring demons

when a mouth opens to speak.

they flee, she flies.

like war, she arrives

covered in filth, disappointed in her maker but

alive.

licking whatever parts of her that continue to drip

wondering at shocked faces who might be

learning in the moment

that a woman can be deity for a two-letter word.

---

 

untitled

 

---

standing on the shoulders of giant matriarchs

towering women in glittering saris,

holding wooden spoons and babies (like me)

maybe I will be one who gets to choose

and with my choice, I will return to source

where God is creating space and life

almost easier than her breathing

---

 

untitled

 

---

I ride to her edge on my ghost horses

and beg her to take me as I am

the ritual begins, turning the ocean into a vessel

for secrets, my previous lives

desires, worries

I empty them into the sea

watch her swallow what I could not

and she gives repentance with the tide

---

 

untitled

 

 

---

all the hours I have spent

fighting over which me I should be

sitting on the shores of my own world

I might have been running instead

spinning dreams, seeds into flowers

holding my grandmother's hand

and speaking the only words that matter

but here I am, now

too tired to fight with my selves

concerned more with which me I could be

if I can just use these hands

during the next blood red sunrise,

and create a house of clouds

to hold all the chatter, and focus,

on only being, being, being

---

 

photo: Monastery beach, California, december 2020

untitled

 

---

I wonder what it might feel like to swim

bare naked in space

darkness hugging my skin from all sides

before my waters freeze and I shatter

and I wonder if I have felt this infinite drowning, on Earth

when I hold my pains like a knot of fire

blazing in a sunken woman's chest

and all the cries unspoken are pressing at my edges

but I say nothing, and carry on

maybe, in the night sky, I am destined to break

---

 

rest in peace

 

---

she was raucous and weak

a terrified, wounded bird

biting with jealous instinct,

and not a female creature

I want to be ever again.

so tonight, when they ask

you can tell them, I'm out

barefoot under the red moon

burying that girl in the ground.

---

 

how we rise

 

---

as a child who remembers

his, her origin

sucking the moon milk

from crying night skies

and wildly falling without

fear, knowing only love

as the language

of the hurting people

I will speak

and you will speak, to me

this how we rise

---

 

paheli

 

---

is dancing, to find her home

glittered hands are trembling

in time to the drum

grandfather fire, he is calling, aao

swallow the smoke, exhale patience &

quietness, leave them to memories

and the girl of ten, she is sitting at the feet

of Shiva, a pearly blue body lifted from a box

shipped from the Motherland, that

she still has never smelled or seen

and Pandit Ji, he held his head and screamed out

when the box was empty, to find

a baby cobra sleeping where it was warm

she blinked herself awake,

and the ladies in red all wept

to witness the serpent miracle of the Lord

how bhagavaan gave, and how they prayed,

that one day he might

take away again

and the girl of ten emptied her hands of the white flowers

looking God dead in the eyes

wondering if he preferred to sit, quiet in shanti, or

to dance

and she wonders still, every time she marks

the middle of her brow

with a bloodred teardrop of joy

a little bit stoned, immoderate

if she should sit, or dance

is she a larki, or a woman

would she be able to understand

her sisters across the sea

clutching shawls to cover their mouths

and hiding, when they long to be undone

mysteries, are the roots

that come alive underground

and tickle the belly of mother earth

with cinnamon & ginger hands

paheli is hungry to know

straining to hear the music

that lingers in the psilocybin echo

the beats, bells, the pulse of a people

who bled, so she could dream

grandfather fire is beckoning

laughing in celebration

aao, bachcha

feet are turning with madness

stars appear to settle on the wind

scents of amber

are burning, burning, dheere dheere

delivered from the motherland

that she might never see

but she chose to dance

paheli chose to dance

---

 

hypnos

 

---

she was reborn, when

the colors beneath the skin

turned quiet

the night mirrored her eyes,

as the stars fell in love

hearing the idea of immortality

voiced without words,

the strength of a thousand

quivering reflections

shining without light

and with every dawn that breaks

silence begs the question

which spirit she should be

---