When I asked for a hand,
You lent me your shoulder,

When I tripped over my toes,
You caught me by the arm,  

So I found it funny that
When you asked for my heart,
You were already my backbone.

Scientists say that the average person,
Falls in love seven times before marriage,
But if this is true, I should officially declare myself
As a member of the spinsterhood because,
On average, I fall in love seven times a day.

Subway strangers
Witty waitresses
Bantering baristas

These temporary lovers,
Make me fall head over heels,
With just a glance,
An accidental brush,
A sly smile.

Maybe I’m not the marrying type –
After all, there are 7 billion 46 million people,
Bumping into each other on this planet,
And perhaps I don’t bump into “the one,”
Since I don’t believe in just “the one.”

72 ways to tell if your crush likes you
Always sent me in the worst preteen spirals
Because I wasn’t exactly sure how to casually check to see
If his pupils would dilate during our conversations
And, after a few seconds of my intense evaluation, he’d stop
And ask if he had food stuck in his teeth
And, if so, then I should be a pal and tell him
Because he wanted to impress
My best friend when she walked into the room.

That summer you two held an-end-of-the-year bonfire,
Where everyone brought their troubled old exams,
Bradburying their barely year old textbooks,
While toasting marshmallow s’mores atop the education protest.

My contribution was something more of a retribution,
Because I brought the poppiest, peppiest, most duplicitous,
Beauty magazine I owned
      [It made me feel ugly and unwanted,
       Judged me by my choice in mascara,
       And set me up for heartbreak all too young].
As I watched it catch fire and morph into molten,
I couldn’t help and laugh,
Relief flooded through my veins when I saw that,
Even when the deemed beautiful is destroyed,
It crumbled down to the same unidentifiable inked gray,
Earth to earth,
Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust.

Like a discordant chord striking the piano deaf,
Or a saxophone that lost its swanky *** appeal,
When you breathe down the neck of my violin,
      The horsehair refuses to bow,
When you huff out your limitations into my harmonica,
      You disrupt my harmony,
Throwing me
                                                        offbeat.

[But I refuse to be beaten].

"I won’t let you go—"
I cut you off with a kiss,
I like my options.

When the thieves broke in,
They broke my mother’s heart,
They broke my naiveté,
They broke my maternal lineage,

By making her closet bare,
She stood barely recognizing it,
Stared at her safe,
Her
Bulletproof
Fireproof    
Apocalypse proof
Safe
Code c r a c k e d,
Deadbolt door eerily open.

“It’s just jewelry,” she muttered,
        [Passed down from one generation to the next,
        Dating back to an invaded India,
        Surviving six hundred soldiers,
        Smuggled within folds of saris through seas,
        Stories etched in souvenir gold].

“At least we’re all safe,” she stated with conviction.
        [Yet I couldn’t help but feel,
        A physical furthering,
        From my immigrant ancestors,
        Who passed along secrets with every pendant,
        Who whispered hopes in every ornate hairpin,
        Who stored their aspirations in every accumulation:
        Real riches knit with poetic prospers from the past].

How funny
To imagine the thieves
Pricing a priceless object --
Ironically making it worthless
Because the burglary left behind
The heritage.

I learned to juggle with oranges,
You learned to juggle with women.

Many oranges fell,
Dropped,
Bruised,
[Learning process after all],
But I mastered the trade.

I can only pray you didn’t.