I don't remember when we stopped
Going to the grocery shop together
When the silence grew too loud to talk over
When I'd stopped trailing after you with the rattling bones of canned soup, clutching the well rusted handles of the shopping cart asyou pioneered your way
Down the discount aisles proud and dusty
Stopping to pick up another sugar laden piece of the American Dream

I do remember my first day grocery shopping alone, squeaking with my empty cart hesitantly down the aisle waiting for you to come and tell me to put back the extra box of chewy chocolate chip cookies
The scuffed tiled floors shone, the fluorescent lighting cast a dull glow and I swear I heard soft angels humming over the white noise from the refrigerators
As I headed home to our white picket nightmare, the blue bags in the backseat shone like medals, subtle victories.

"Oh Tata you're crazy"
Almond shaped eyes pointing in
Two directions, hair still frizzy from
The static on your two toned wool
Sweater, your glasses askew hanging
Precipitously on the edge of your nose

"You're crazy" I saw again when
You'd show me notebooks filled
Earnest hasty lines naive to prove
Their worth to the world, stumbling
Figures eager to spread world peace

"You're crazy" I repeated as you
Gingerly combed the remaining strands
Of greying hair and tuck your collared
Shirt into your pressed khakis but left
ice cream splotches drying on your arms

Too late I realized that you weren't crazy
I was just too small to it was the world
That was crazy so strict with their lines and rules about who could and couldn't be
And you existed in between spaces yet undefined

Brown girl dreams of love
that feels like drowning  

Warm oceans will heal
bruised muscles clinging
onto her rusting bones
a balm for the marks
on the inside
of her open thighs

Brown girl dreams of
a love that is drowning

Warm oceans will flood
hallowed hollows pushing
onto her collapsed walls
sinking air rises slow
in a murky tide
small noiseless cries

Brown girl dreams of
a love that drowns her

When I was thirteen my mother
Took a rose and crushed it
Letting the thorns ***** into her sides
Pinpoints of blood blushing on her arm

“This is what a man does to a woman,
What he takes and what cannot be
Restored, this what you must endure
This is what your family must endure
Because you are a woman.”

So is it any wonder that when you
Pushed yourself inside without asking
I did not stop you, that I only closed
My eyes and saw the image of that
Crushed red rose lying limp
Between my mother’s feet

When I was younger Nanu
Told me bhoot kahanies of
Treacherous masked nishi
That crept on four long legs
Wreaking havoc among
Peaceful village homes  

I sleep with lights on always
Lest the silent boba crept in

In 2001, I discovered bhoot
Wear the mask of friends
With benign, serpentine voices
That sat inside mosques to put
Innocent men in prison and tell
Small children to fear the sky

I sleep with the TV on always
Lest the silent boba crept in

Bhooth walk between us
Tell us to fear each other
Until we cast off our names
Convinced that these are
Weapons waiting to be
Utilized against us.

The yolk of yesteryear festered
Leaving fewer shoes at the masjid
Fewer smiles at Eid more taut lines
At the corner of Imam's mouth as he
Raised his hands to cover his head and
Cried the Azan to an empty room

Behind him tenuous shadows lurked
Eager to report back to an eagle with
Its talon scratched feudal lines deciding
Who gets to live and for how long
In countries far away where children
Have learned to fear the sky

It was the type of heat that
Where bodies hungered
filled in the other's hollows
tongue in mouth in ear
the crook of the neck.

The type of heat that
left hair tangled, matted
limp against the back
leaving slick imprints.

The type of heat that
sparked and radiated
that needs no language
for ******.

The type of heat that
Has no introduction
That ends only in
Exhalations