Where am I?

For those who ask:
I am in the home I grew up in
Between the intersection and the train tracks
(Did you know, when I was little and up too late
I heard the whistle of the train
And I thought it was the trumpeting of angels
Come to take me in the night.)

And where am I, Lord?
Where will this be
In history’s books?
Just down the street from a post office
Built during the civil war for shipping shoes
Still open—an essential service
In a time of worry, as it was in the time of war
(There have been sixteen cases in my town
And it has not yet touched me.)

And oh, where am I, my love?
I am with my family
Keeping my hands busy
So my mind stays still
I am in bed, or on the floor,
Or in the living room, or on the porch,
Or putting grooves in the driveway
As I stop to smell the flowers
that have bloomed the same this year
as they have on every other
except this year I have someone to compare them to and
not a blossom measures up to you, my love.

Where am I?
Home
Safe—as safe as one can be
In a familiar place
All of these are true
(But the first answer that comes to my mind
Is always “still miles away from you”)

Blue bird,
every time I set you free
unfailingly, you fly back to me.
Perched out of reach
never out of mind
evermore locked in my gravity.

I know, blue bird,
the quandary of a heart
so willingly ensnared.
I remember the soothing drum
of its unquiet content.

I have longed for the keen
euphoric sting you bring
even as I banished you.
Without you
I am an empty nest.
I am so… heavy
with you.

Only I can let you go.
Only you can return to me.

A Monginis Cake Shop flex hangs
above a hardware and electronics store
and a man in front of it
speaks loudly into his phone,
trying to explain this his location,
slapping the other hand on his forehead.

Another man, this one on a scooter
going slower than a public transport bus
has his helmet resting in the front
between his feet
instead of on his head.
(Is this blatant disregard for life
or staggering confidence about it?)

An old Nauvari-clad woman
bearing a big vermillion stain on her forehead
innocently spits her paan on a
Clean Mumbai, Green Mumbai graffiti.

I get up to go stand
at the front door
and someone else takes my seat.

They will see a skinny girl
typing furiously into her phone
this very poem.

side hugs are like
performative wokeness;
shallow, flaky, meaningless
convenient, censored -
appealing, yes?
appeasing, too, i guess.

but no
i demand the real deal
furnish me with both arms
disregard my weak frame,
i promise, i wont break
let me have it
im not a snowflake
just a girl who
likes to take
on the world
with hugs
as her weapon of choice.

is full of nonsense:

summing up my parts,
contradiction is the quotient
and the remainder is a hole
I fail to fill

my thoughts don’t add up;
questions make fractions
that multiply themselves
of their own will

regret is the exponent
when decision is the base
and even the best results
are some digits out of place

Incomplete beauty –
a photograph of a wave –
shadow memory.

Softly, the music makes me weep, and I
sink into the storm. You are breathtaking.
My life before you was a dream, a lie.
I am awake now, love, trembling, shaking.

You have ripped my feeble façade away
and doused me in ultraviolet bliss.
You, you are the sky. I am a blue jay
forever reaching, begging for a kiss.

I smolder under your luminous gaze;
I grow heavy, molten under your touch.
Slowly, I open, close, my blood ablaze,
Undulating in your leisurely clutch.

I rise, yield, my heart beating like a drum.
I float, complete, my breath a steady thrum.

Your pain is not a gift.

Don’t be burdened
if they don’t rejoice to receive it.

Don’t
let the lack of a correct response
ebb your purge.

They don’t understand.
Of course, they don’t.
They are not you;
They have not suffered
your black holes.
Do you wish them to?

Don’t
brush away their sympathy.
It is the price you pay
to have someone
care enough to listen.

Here I sit, collecting sunsets
while you are away from me.
I dissolve my silly regrets
in steaming mugs of tea.

I’d miss you more, I think
if it weren’t for the playful sea.
The waves tease me with a wink –
I’m easily distracted, you see.

The weather has been great,
these days I’m almost happy.
So I enjoy myself while I wait
for you to come back to me.