I do this weird thing.
It’s uncomfortable.
My body doesn’t feel like it’s mine,
And my mind shoots blanks.

It happens when I put the men first.

I asked my friend about it —
She’s his wife now.
Makes him his protein shake
And begs him to do the dishes.
She says, “It’s not weird.”

I asked my mother,
While she packed a lunchbox,
Sweat down her back,
Her hair thinning.
She says she’s comfortable.

I asked my little sister —
She’s finally tall enough for the roller coaster.
She sent a Snapchat and waited.
She sent another one.
This time her blouse came down.
She says she loves her body.

Finally,
I looked in the mirror —
The same kind Sylvia Plath had.
I saw a worried girl.
Scared of liking him more than she should.
Imagining a ring on her hand.
Praying
That he doesn’t hurt her.

Pen touches paper
All I write is still your name
My heart stays the same

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

I shivered, while you sat still—
across the room, laughing,
asking about my day,
buying me flowers.
My eyes would search,
x-ray through clouds,
to find you—
tall and smiling.

I shivered, while you sat still,
as the AC blasted,
lectures of the gods lingered.
I know you felt it too
when I walked away.
Lucky us—
distance bought fondness.

I shivered, while you sat still,
talking about our lives,
holding me through the night,
smiling at the sky,
watching the fireworks die.
It’s okay.
It might work out again.
The eleventh time is the charm.

I shivered, while you sat still,
next to your wife,
smiling—
and I finally froze.

All my life,
you said what you said.
I did what you said.

I wore full-sleeved clothes.
I stayed quiet.
My cries went into vacuum—
swallowed, silent.

But you always stood strong.
It’s the colour of skin.
The hair you couldn’t tame.
The nose that wasn’t yours.

I always just...
heard what you said
until my ears bled out.

You remind me of the mountains—
the ones I grew up with:
tall, oddly shaped, and proud.
It’s shocking
that my tears made you crumble,
like a lost girl at sea.

Glad to see,
the past haunts you
like it does me.

It was the books,
The same ones I read,
Over the summers,
In the libraries
That told me it was okay to wish.
So I wished,
For a **** body,
Like the ones on the posters.
I did not get that,
So I moved on.

It was probably TV,
The shows with eternal love,
Chemistry that was across lifetimes,
Romance and slow dances.
So I wished again,
For a tall funny man,
He will be my mirror I thought,
That shattered too

Why wish at all?
It is a futile thought
Like the sky you’ll never reach.