"dimag ka dahi"
karare **?" mother jokes
she is so correct

“are you turning your
mind into yogurt?”, that means
bacterial mush

cerebral dairy
sludge sloshes inside of my
hollowed cranium

how many times must
i repeat, “i don’t want to
take any with me”

before she listens,
and relents, and lets me go,
and i can breathe at last

all i want is to
disappear altogether
so she can’t see me

so she can’t scold me
when i have done nothing wrong
so she can’t tell me
all the things i’m doing wrong
so i won’t be rude
when she has done nothing wrong
the problem is me
not always, but it is now
i, who did not take
medications that i should
i, self-saboteur,
orchestrator of my fall
i, sun-baked, tired
composing this long haiku
syllables be ******

sweet coco next door
provides me with a reprieve
from these swirling thoughts