First things first
I'd like to apologise

I'm sorry I'm not the good Indian girl I was bred to be
I'm sorry I don't make round rotis
I'm sorry that the tongue I use to speak punjabi is broken and hides in my mouth unused until desperately needed
I'm sorry that I don't cook and clean efficiently enough to be wifey material
Sorry that I love who I love and don't hate who I was told to
Sorry that I can't follow gods blindly and not try to sneak back stage to see their shining gold adornments and blue body paints and multiple arms in full and bare glory and scandal

I'm sorry that I'm actually not sorry for any of this
I'm sorry that these are false and empty apologies

I am unapologetically whole
A human not just a race
A female not a trust fund or business transaction

I filter out the good parts of the culture I'm from and the ones I identify with
I'll wear docs under my saari no apologies
I'll grind on dancefloors and do the best Bhangra dance you'll ever see unashamedly

Hareems and hoodies
Bindies and pin up eyeliner
Hedonism and head in the clouds

My ambition is Ambedkar untouchable
My drive is a salt march surging silently non violently through cities
My hometown pride is built in concrete and rickshaw dust,
Prejudice and Bollywood lust

Lustful glances, from an empty heart,
Plenty of chances, she's a cheap ****,
This dancefloors a graveyard,
Their dignity lies in shards,
I judge, yet I still take part,
I'm the joker in this pack of cards.

A subtle glance, from a beating heart,
Only one chance,for a brand new start,
This dancefloor's a pathway,
To more than just a ***** lay,
I'm nervous, yet still i take part,
Moments that keep lonliness at bay.

In and out of doors but still so sure

Filling  dancefloors you’re cool you’re pure

Facing collision with a new disposition and trying to maintain

That sometimes there is sun but mostly there is rain

Time is a not a concept I hear him creeping up. I turn I look him in the eyes and ask, “what’s up?”

“Nothing’s up I’m merely here and follow everyone but I’ve never followed anyone that’s like a loaded gun”

Peace and love are no reprieve with a heart upon your sleeve

Pull apart every stitch in time and lets weave

Now I’m king but still no queen I see her in my dreams

When I’m asleep she’s awake or so it seems

Words you see the notes will follow

Anticipate tomorrow

Never lend never borrow it only leads to being *******.

Bus stop and ***** shop suspicion makes you wanna

Start a good religion that everyone will folla

Scratch that I know nothing but the importance of feeling

Let the plan hatch that’s stirring then escape to leave them reeling

Feel so good didn’t know I could but enough about me

Lets celebrate the fact our eyes can see

Sure this road I woke upon does pierce the horizon

I bet though when I get there anticlimax is the poison

The nowhere groove down which I move presents itself in fact

It's a necessary evil with which I’ve made my pact

Suddenly, so long, release!

The wasted days and lonely weeks

Chances change we come of age and crash through an oasis

Places people just don't know

Scared and scolded as we go

This is this we’re meant to go

Deep inside I just don’t know

Rain it falls as twilight calls last orders on this game of old

Back to chances, only fear, your chances live and die right here.

the love and romance.
the years lit by artillery.
the wars.

the men did these wild things. these great grand expressions of love and survival.
they’d damage themselves, bleed while moving furniture.
wood splinters better painted red wet warmth.
they’d notch together plum-cut bricks into
crenulations or walls or cathedrals.
home built.

the women: of an ancient woven fiber
and/or old energy, they’d battle serpents into dark and drunk loneliness.
she conspired for a happy life.

death by the meadow.
old woman remembering young woman and
young man,
now old man approaching.
the world forgets, but we will always have eachother.

remember us youths in proto-revolution.
we didn’t believe in what we did.
we lived a lie.
all america.
dreaming and soap opera.
daytime television blastulas.

the wars are fought early, and fierce.
the wars are won and lost on highschool dancefloors.
highschool blacktops. blackboards. breathy
kissing.
spectral codes of light.

and we bloom outward into livelihoods and
incomes.
timelines.
trenches to crawl from shell-shocked and screaming ****** ******.
or not.
but yes -

the world is built on blisters and scar tissue.
nothing is untouched.
nothing is unwounded.

When I was younger
I had this idea of love
As being a prewritten script

I’d spot you on the dancefloor
Our eyes would meet
You would smile
I would smile
We would dance the night away

All of a sudden you would have to leave
It’s okay though
You would leave your slipper
That way I could return it
So that you could be my princess

What I didn’t know is that dancefloors aren’t meant for lovers
Or that your eyes would be like medusas
Turning my soul to stone
And that when you left
You shoe would stay on your foot
Leaving me with an idea of love when I was a little older

Love was my dad in the navy
My mom the traveling nurse
Meeting in Hawaii
Getting married in a church
Her waiting while he was away
They’d love each other forever
After all, they had me.

But sometimes mom and dad fight
And sometimes mom and dad cry
Because let’s face it
Mom and dad had this idea of love
When they were younger
And this wasn’t what they had in mind

When I was a teenager i had this idea of love
She had freckles and green eyes
One half Irish
One half Indian
She had all of my heart
She told me to write down my feelings
And to trust in love
Love way talking on the phone till 2am
And holding hands in public

But no one told me that love could have a father
And that sometimes dads drink
And go missing for a few days at a time
Or that love could leave for 6 weeks
And that talking on the phone till 2am
Could turn into never sleeping
Because love wasn’t there
No one had warned me that love’s letters sometimes have misspellings
And that when love returns home she wouldn’t feel the same
And she never did
Four years later
Sometimes I think about love
But not too much
I am kind of done pretending

i'm always
in between places
encouraged to embrace new phases
been told that my tension is baseless
and if i'm so restless then maybe
i should rest more
forget the urge to explore and
try harder to be relaxed, or
acceptable, adorable,
but i swore that this turbulence would mean something
whether on dancefloors or in bookstores
i'd be there, carving out a slice of the world
to swallow whole and put gleaming eyes to work
healing old wounds covered over in moss and stones
sinew and muscle and skin so new that nobody who's hurt me
has ever touched it
i figure there's water in some places that can seep through tired bones and reach even
the smallest, longest-burning embers in my lungs that catch my breath sometimes
when i see an old photograph, or the at the smell of petrol
and sitting here means nothing more than coughing up ashes
so i'd like to know what sort of rest they think that is

i want to believe that the one place in this town untainted by trauma is somewhere i leave bluebells behind me with every footstep
then if i revisit i might be able to spot where my healing started
somewhere between there and starlight in june
or maybe it was underneath july's orange moon
or maybe it was after soaking my face in lightning storms on an august night
either way, whenever i've daydreamed about my life
this place wasn't what i had in mind
or dragged out for this amount of time
so perhaps all it means
is that my dreams remain untouched by clumsy hands
and i can still be charmed by fresh lands and familiar plans
and even if the restlessness never wanes
i still have the moonlight in my veins

until then all i have are grey skies and citalopram
and this place looks the same all year round
and nobody even notices ashes in the atmosphere
because everything turns to dust here

One of my first jobs was as a waiter in a Thai Restaurant
Run by a scary Malaysian who'd taken a liking to me
We went to a rave once
And he gave me 400 AUD for Chinese New Year
Bless him

But one night a tall Singaporean guy called Sunny came in
He was a musician too
He played in a rock and roll band
The Suns

Sunny lasted one night
But he told me about an open mic run by a girl called Michelle
And we stayed in contact
----

Gom was in the year above me at school
Gom was the only African at our school, he and his brother
Goyte also went to our school, he was in Gom's year. At school I was smart and cool, played bass and was friends with everybody. School was sometimes an escape from home life.

Marcus took me to Gom's place once where he lived with his girlfriend Nikki
I took my guitar and Gom and I jammed in the bedroom
A singer and a rapper
----

The first time I ever played live was at a place called Yah man Rastaraunt
It was a Caribbean Restaurant on Hoddle Street, South Yarra, Melbourne
It had that black feeling, of warmth and mystery. Or maybe that was youth and ****.
But I played, and some of the girls were crying
I'd found my thing
I went back the next week and froze up
----

There was a place called Pure on Smith Street. This was where Sunny said the open mic was run by Michelle. In those years, Smith street had a sacred vibe. Maybe it was the presence of an Aboriginal community or the fact that gentrification hadn't yet taken hold. But things were elemental, exaggerated by the warmth of summer nights.
I loved these open mics, the people I've met. I'd invite my work crew and friends. Sometimes I'd pack that venue out, for 3 songs!
----

Gom and I started a band
Melbourne was hip-hop, music, life and Fitzroy was Mecca
On Monday nights you could go to a place called the Laundry and see B-boys doing backflips on dancefloors!
Open mics, Latin Culture, losing my virginity
I was living and working as a waiter in beautiful Carlton, Melbourne's Italy. I love the parks there.

I flew interstate to study jazz
To smoke more ****
Then less ****
To wander like the wind, to bend like the rain, but always circling music and its hubs

I moved to London in 2015
I worked in a cafe and met a guy called Stefan from Austria. He is still one of the coolest and nicest people you can meet. I'll have to link up with him in Berlin one day soon.
He introduced me to Stefano from Italy who played the drums
We set up a band and had a few gigs
We had Hakan on Trombone and Bahadir on bass
Stefano had all these connections to the Turkish musical community
Because of the fact he plays in the Oddbeats, a psychedelic Turkish Band, one of the long standing hippie bands round these parts

I worked in a cafe called Music and Beans on Green Lanes, London's Istanbul. It was run by a musician who played amazing violin and also ran a music school. I lived in a tiny room above the school for a bit. On Green lanes there was a place called Jam in a Jar where you could see all kinds of music, from Mediterranean to Irish folk. It had a festival feel to it.
----

I go to open mics and jams like I did back in Melbourne,
It's very jazzy and jammy in this city. I like going to blues jams sometimes.
But I do like to remember those first gigs and musical experiences I had back in Melbourne
The meditation and wonder of it

I see Lloyle Carner at the swimming pool sometimes
He comes in with his daughter and wife
There I work as a lifeguard
On the days when I'm not working, I'll be working on my music, playing guitar, piano, writing, listening, learning, humming, singing, reading...
Stefano and I set up a house removed from the noise of traffic, replaced by the sounds of birds. There are trees everywhere and a lake nearby.
I've dedicated myself to being able to sing that great song in great condition, so that keeps the number of joints, beers and cigarettes down and the number of kilometers run and minutes meditated up.


I would cite Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, Aston “Familyman” Barret, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Flea, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, James Jamerson, Donny Hathaway, Lauryn Hill, Sam Cooke, Bill Withers, Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carole King, James Taylor, Norah Jones, Nick Drake, Bjork, Portishead, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Burial, Flying Lotus, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Aphrodite, Charlie Parker, Chopin, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Paul Kelly, Jeff Buckley, Jaco Pastorius, Eric Dolphy, David Bowie, Charles Mingus, Herbie Hancock, J Dilla, Tupac, Juicy the song, Nirvana, Crowded House, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Prince, Parliament, D'Angelo's 3 Albums to date, Blackstar, The Roots, Adele, Beyonce, Aretha Franklin, Eryka Badu, Hiatus Kaiyote, Nai Palm, Muddy Waters, BB King, Ben Harper, Joe Cocker, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Mavis Staples, The Beatles and tapestries more as inspirations and influences