you ‘why’ her.
While she is thrilled & happily beside you,
Telling you when she’s up to something new.
Your pre-existing notion of setting a “ya” for her limits,
Persistent "no" to her wishes,
She grows up to know that,
if she got to do something new
She got to fight over the, 5 Ws & 1 H!
Ow! & you convince it’s out of distress not mistrust!
And by the Indian parenting manual,
questionnaire weighs heavier at a girl.
ultimately,
“This time”, “That day”,
" This place", “Those people”
Would impregnate her!
Sons of yours -
Son of nights! freely hatching eggs past curfew.
Not foreseeing the evenings his sister would come crying.
Parents when you talk on equality & empowerment,
Let broad mind not hit the very ceiling of your house
Let rest mindset that proclaims gender roles,
The differential idea you set on them,
From who uses broom to who chooses groom.
If misogyny is permeated in the roots of society
Cleansing and changing begins in the family,
Before there in your minds, first.

After long dark,
you can find me in my mind;
taming serpents; kissing girls.
You may not understand
why I've been the way I am.
You're under-educated
and that's only half your fault.

Sometimes I am imprisoned
within the waves of an ocean
that always misbehaves --
but it's not my fault; just the
way the god rolls: making halves
and making wholes.

After the short syrup of light,
you can find me hiding, true;
pulling off ticks; kissing boys.
You may not comprehend
the way I'm fumbled together.
You're under-educated
and that's only half your fault.

Always I am imprisoned
within the crash of culture;
my thoughts treated like worms;
my illnesses considered contrived.
But it's not my fault; just the
way you guys roll: ignoring halves
for conventional wholes.

Blue bear
with golden teeth -
He took a bite from my neck
when I wasn’t looking.
I looked at him then
and he smiled at me.
I saw pieces of my flesh
in his golden teeth.

The Miss, Misters and Mrs.,
And the St. Joseph's Sisters,
Made me a Bluejay,
Jay- jaying and soaring
Over Wrens and Robins
Below in five rows.
Teeth marks on Ticondarogas,
Initialed pink rubbers,
Toothpicks and fingers
Solved all those problems.

Sister Lucille showed me Sarnia
On the Neilson Wall Map,
With the Malted Milk,
Crispy Crunch bars staring back.
They looked too delicious,
Her reprimand was contritious,
I'm doing time during recess,
Ninety minutes til lunch.

We stood in a crooked line,
Like a snake, to get marked,
With her drawer a crack open
We'd get a peek at her strap.
Black or red, correctively cold;
Sister Roseangela, we'd heard,
Cried, Quid Pro Quo.

We had football baseball,
And hockey dreams,
Volleyball, basketball,
And funeral teams;
Field Days, Holy Days,
Days needed at home;
Teachers were coaches,
With little time to complain;
But the kids back then
Just weren't the same.
There were skirmishes, fouls,
Strike outs and time outs;
We were sliced white bread,
No rye or whole grain.

We'd march double file
Once a week to the Church,
To genuflect and reflect
At the Stations and Cross.
To confess, get redress,
Display penitent remorse,
Though keeping a secret
From the Confessional box,
A comfort and curse.

Their objective succeeded,
The lessons went deep;
Using the three Rs,
The ABCs, 1, 2, 3s,
To impart and ingraine
How to carry one's cross.

I remember by name
The Miss,  Misters and Mrs.
And St. Joseph's Sisters
Who gave their all,
Each day, and always.
They've gone or retired,
But recalled in tranquility
For the life-lessons I admire.

Education?,
What is it?,
Gaining information,
But what i see,
Is memorizing textbooks,
Forgetting after exams,
Or that's what happens,
In my country,
This is suffering,
How is this teaching,
How is someone supposed,
To grow and live with this?,
I'm grateful i get education,
I'm fortunate,
But I'm still in a cage,
I'm not yet free,
Burden of studies,
Burden from parents,
Burden from grades,
Why judge someone strongly,
With grades,
Grades, marks, point is assessment,
Of skill,
Not the whole life,
I personally don't understand,
How this world works.

.
(Children's poem)
.
I'd like to sit
still and serenely
But I can't
I'm the Queen Bee.

A Queens work
is never through
there is always
something to do.

I'm laying eggs
and filling cells
and letting out
my secret smells.

I make sure
the hive is clean
and not littered
with perils unseen.

I caught Veroa
the other week
glucoside syrup
fixed me a treat.

But all of this
has its cost,
Oh! How I wish
I was born a wasp.

© Pagan Paul (16/06/16)

preface: this isn't cohesive, and it's mostly a side effect of having too much free time while stuck in traffic - lots of thoughts can pop into your half-awake head when you choose to start your 1 hour, 45 minute commute at 5:30 every morning and 6:30 every night.

these are some of those thoughts:

how many car accidents and concussions will it take for me to just move closer to where i work? apparently, more than five.

driving on a california freeway, especially in the rain, is like getting a free ride on the world's most dangerous slip n slide. or like playing roulette and praying you and your precious car you have had since high school don't fall victim to the misfortune of a collision or sink hole or only clear radio station being the one that won't stop playing adele songs that compel you to hit up your ex boyfriend again.

but you're a smart driver who doesn't text on the road or date men from new jersey anymore.

i like to map out new ways to tell my family that i'm actually kind of really gay because they've been having a really hard time accepting that, despite the fact that i've tried to make it as blatantly obvious as i could by dressing like chandler bing from friends, dying my hair rainbow, and listening to more fleetwood mac than any straight girl should.

i have even walked up to my mother and outright asked her, "hey, what's it like having a gay daughter?" (not that it should be any different than having any other kind of daughter), and she said, "i don't have a gay daughter", and i'm like, "oh my god, mom. yes, you do. she's 5'8", looks just like me, and is constantly talking about how gay she is."

a lot of people have given me unwarranted "advice" on how to make myself more appealing for jobs or romance, and i'll mull it over in the car, but not for too long because women aren't empty suggestion boxes just waiting for your input.

if anything, i'm more like the receptionist at the DMV. i'm only listening to you a third of the time, and the other 2/3, i wish you weren't there to bore me with your problems because it's not my fault that you need to pay off a ticket you got for texting your ex boyfriend from jersey.

people in college frequently asked me "what are you?" and i never really knew how to respond because i wasn't clear or pleased about the question's context or purpose. i would half-seriously respond with "i'm a sophomore" or "i'm a capricorn" or "i'm a sociology major who just realized gender isn't binary and taco tuesdays are a real and exciting thing".

i knew that being ethnically ambiguous meant i would be subjected to guessing games, but i thought if people didn't know what you were, you could dodge judgment and racism. but no, i actually just found myself treated like an ice cream flavour people had never heard of or tried before and weren't sure how they felt about it.

and i, myself, had been in this phase of dating exclusively white men for years, and it only recently occurred to me that that was probably because subconsciously i knew: "this is the closest i'll ever be to having white privilege".

then, i started working in schools where almost all the students were black and brown, and for the first time in my life, i saw myself in people around me.

small people, people in progress, with big brown eyes and clenched fists that i would spend months prying open

with love.

enough love to raise a hand,
hold a pencil,
braid my hair on days when it was so frizzy
- "oh my god, miss sangha, let me do it"

up until then, i had never chosen to be brown or queer or a woman. not until my students demanded i learn spanish because i already got the skin tone, now i just need to learn the language. not until my students asked me why the school made them line up boy girl, and one of them started the third line with pride that took me nearly a decade to find myself. not until i stopped letting people label me an angry ***** just because they lacked the vocabulary to say "wow, jaswin, you have really assertive leadership skills and i'm going to respect you and the space you take up and not at all be threatened or bothered by the fact that you have two X chromosomes to the point of harassing you to make my insecure self feel better."

i became someone who got "do it for the kids" tattooed on the left side vein that leads to her heart, someone who chooses her students every day to the extent of being terrified of having her own kid one day because if she can love someone else's child that much, her heart might just burst from locking eyes with someone whose existence she is actually directly responsible for.

clearly, i'm not going to let a little traffic slow down that kind of radical love.

2 Corinthians 9:8 "And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."

In the gleam
of the morning sunrise
i saw the blooming
of the seed of faith;
strength to live
another day,
peace to let go
of yesterday,
grace
for the journey ahead.

I am blessed
going in and going out;
wherever I go
I carry the beauty-mark of success
eternal happiness
because I believe
I am blessed
because you love me
I am alive
because you touched me

And eventhough
it may not be an easy road
i recognize
that you are here with me,
there to guide my eyes to see,
hold my hand and lead me
through treacherous trail of every trial
until I get to promised land
of milk and honey.

I am blessed