The Sun and Her Flowers Read online

  nothing to do with sleep

  and everything to do with

  the people around me

  - introvert

  you must see no worth in yourself

  if you find me worth less

  after you’ve touched me

  as if your hands on my body

  magnify you

  and reduce me to nothing

  - worth is not something we transfer

  you do not just wake up and become the butterfly

  - growth is a process

  i am having a difficult time right now

  comparing myself to other people

  i am stretching myself thin trying to be them

  making fun of my face like my father

  calling it ugly

  starving out this premature double chin before it

  melts into my shoulders like candle wax

  fixing the bags under my eyes that carry the rape

  bookmarking surgical procedures for my nose

  there is so much that needs tending to

  can you point me in the right direction

  i want to take this body off

  which way back to the womb

  like the rainbow

  after the rain

  joy will reveal itself

  after sorrow

  no was a bad word in my home

  no was met with the lash

  erased from our vocabulary

  beaten out of our backs

  till we became well-behaved kids

  who obediently nodded yes to everything

  when he climbed on top of me

  every part of my body wanted to reject it

  but i couldn’t say no to save my life

  when i tried to scream

  all that escaped me was silence

  i heard no pounding her fist

  on the roof of my mouth

  begging to let her out

  but i had not put up the exit sign

  never built the emergency staircase

  there was no trapdoor for no to escape from

  i want to ask all the

  parents and guardians a question

  what use was obedience then

  when there were hands

  that were not mine inside me

  - how can i verbalize consent as an adult if i was

  never taught to as a child

  despite knowing

  they won’t be here for long

  they still choose to live

  their brightest lives

  - sunflowers

  when you find her

  tell her not a day goes by

  when i do not think of her

  that girl who thinks you are

  everything she asked for

  when you bounce her off the walls

  and she cries

  tell her i cry with her too

  the sound of drywall crunching into itself

  as it’s beaten with her head

  also lives in my ears

  tell her to run to me

  i have already unscrewed

  my front door off its frame

  opened all the windows

  inside there is a warm bath running

  she does not need your kind of love

  i am proof she will get out

  and find her way back to herself

  if i could survive you

  so will she

  parts of my body still ache

  from the first time they were touched

  the art of growing

  i felt beautiful until the age of twelve

  when my body began to ripen like new fruit

  and suddenly

  the men looked at my newborn hips with salivating lips

  the boys didn’t want to play tag at recess

  they wanted to touch all the new

  and unfamiliar parts of me

  the parts i didn’t know how to wear

  didn’t know how to carry

  and tried to bury in my rib cage

  boobs

  they said

  and i hated that word

  hated that i was embarrassed to say it

  that even though it was referring to my body

  it didn’t belong to me

  it belonged to them

  and they repeated it like

  they were meditating upon it

  boobs

  he said

  let me see yours

  there is nothing worth seeing here but guilt and shame

  i try to rot into the earth below my feet

  but i am still standing one foot across

  from his hooked fingers

  and when he charges to feast on my half moons

  i bite into his forearm and decide i hate this body

  i must have done something terrible to deserve it

  when i go home i tell my mother

  the men outside are starving

  she tells me

  i must not dress with my breasts hanging

  said the boys will get hungry if they see fruit

  says i should sit with my legs closed

  like a woman oughta

  or the men will get angry and fight

  said i can avoid all this trouble

  if i just learn to act like a lady

  but the problem is

  that doesn’t even make sense

  i can’t wrap my head around the fact

  that i have to convince half the world’s population

  my body is not their bed

  i am busy learning the consequences of womanhood

  when i should be learning science and math instead

  i like cartwheels and gymnastics so i can’t imagine

  walking around with my thighs pressed together

  like they’re hiding a secret

  as if the acceptance of my own body parts

  will invite thoughts of lust in their heads

  i will not subject myself to their ideology

  cause slut shaming is rape culture

  virgin praising is rape culture

  i am not a mannequin in the window

  of your favorite shop

  you can’t dress me up or

  throw me out when i am worn

  you are not a cannibal

  your actions are not my responsibility

  you will control yourself

  the next time i go to school

  and the boys hoot at my backside

  i push them down

  foot over their necks

  and defiantly say

  boobs

  and the look in their eyes is priceless

  when the world comes crashing at your feet

  it’s okay to let others

  help pick up the pieces

  if we’re present to take part in your happiness

  when your circumstances are great

  we are more than capable

  of sharing your pain

  - community

  i do not weep

  because i’m unhappy

  i weep because i have everything

  yet i am unhappy

  let it go

  let it leave

  let it happen

  nothing

  in this world

  was promised or

  belonged to you anyway

  - all you own is yourself

  wish pure love and soft peace

  upon the ones

  who’ve been unkind to you

  and keep moving for
ward

  - this will free you both

  yes

  it is possible

  to hate and love someone

  at the same time

  i do it to myself

  every day

  somewhere along the way

  i lost the self-love

  and became my greatest enemy

  i thought i’d seen the devil before

  in the uncles who touched us as children

  the mobs that burned our city to the ground

  but i’d never seen someone as hungry

  for my flesh as i was

  i peeled my skin off just to feel awake

  wore it inside out

  sprinkled it with salt to punish myself

  turmoil clotted my nerves

  my blood curdled

  i even tried to bury myself alive

  but the dirt recoiled

  you have already rotted it said

  there is nothing left for me to do

  - self-hate

  the way you speak of yourself

  the way you degrade yourself

  into smallness

  is abuse

  - self-harm

  when i hit the rock bottom

  that exists after the rock bottom

  and no rope or hand appeared

  i wondered

  what if nothing wants me

  because i do not want me

  - i am both the poison and the antidote

  first

  i went for my words

  the i can’ts. i won’ts. i am not good enoughs.

  i lined them up and shot them dead

  then i went for my thoughts

  invisible and everywhere

  there was no time to gather them one by one

  i had to wash them out

  i wove a linen cloth out of my hair

  soaked it in a bowl of mint and lemon water

  carried it in my mouth as i climbed

  up my braid to the back of my head

  down on my knees i began to wipe my mind clean

  it took twenty-one days

  my knees bruised but

  i did not care

  i was not given the breath

  in my lungs to choke it out

  i would scrub the self-hate off the bone

  till it exposed love

  - self-love

  i have survived far too much to go quietly

  let a meteor take me

  call the thunder for backup

  my death will be grand

  the land will crack

  the sun will eat itself

  - the day i leave

  i want to honeymoon myself

  if i am the longest relationship

  of my life

  isn’t it time to

  nurture intimacy

  and love

  with the person

  i lie in bed with each night

  - acceptance

  what is stronger

  than the human heart

  which shatters over and over

  and still lives

  i woke up thinking the work was done

  i would not have to practice today

  how naive to think healing was that easy

  when there is no end point

  no finish line to cross

  healing is everyday work

  you have so much

  but are always hungry for more

  stop looking up at everything you don’t have

  and look around at everything you do

  - where the satisfaction lives

  you can imitate a light like mine

  but you cannot become it

  and here you are living

  despite it all

  this is the recipe of life

  said my mother

  as she held me in her arms as i wept

  think of those flowers you plant

  in the garden each year

  they will teach you

  that people too

  must wilt

  fall

  root

  rise

  in order to bloom

  they have no idea what it is like

  to lose home at the risk of

  never finding home again

  to have your entire life

  split between two lands and

  become the bridge between two countries

  - immigrant

  look at what they’ve done

  the earth cried to the moon

  they’ve turned me into one entire bruise

  - green and blue

  you are an open wound

  and we are standing

  in a pool of your blood

  - refugee camp

  when it came to listening

  my mother taught me silence

  if you are drowning their voice with yours

  how will you hear them she asked

  when it came to speaking

  she said do it with commitment

  every word you say

  is your own responsibility

  when it came to being

  she said be tender and tough at once

  you need to be vulnerable to live fully

  but rough enough to survive it all

  when it came to choosing

  she asked me to be thankful

  for the choices i had that

  she never had the privilege of making

  - lessons from mumma

  leaving her country

  was not easy for my mother

  i still catch her searching for it

  in foreign films

  and the international food aisle

  i wonder where she hid him. her brother who had died only a year before. as she sat in a costume of red silk and gold on her wedding day. she tells me it was the saddest day of her life. how she had not finished mourning yet. a year was not enough. there was no way to grieve that quick. it felt like a blink. a breath. before the news of his loss had sunk in the decor was already hung up. the guests had started strolling in. the small talk. the rush. all mirrored his funeral too much. it felt as though his body had just been carried away for the cremation when my father and his family arrived for the wedding celebrations.

  - amrik singh (1959–1990)

  i am sorry this world

  could not keep you safe

  may your journey home

  be a soft and peaceful one

  - rest in peace

  your legs buckle like a tired horse running for safety

  drag them by the hips and move faster

  you do not have the privilege to rest

  in a country that wants to spit you out

  you have to keep

  going and going

  and going

  till you reach the water

  hand over everything in your name

  for a ticket onto the boat

  next to a hundred others like you

  packed like sardines

  you tell the woman beside you

  this boat is not strong enough to carry

  this much sorrow to a shore

  what does it matter she says

  if drowning is easier than staying

  how many people has this water drunk up

  is it all one long cemetery

  bodies buried without a country

  perhaps the sea is your country

  perhaps the boat sinks

  because it is the only place that will take you
r />   - boat

  what if we get to their doors

  and they slam them shut i ask

  what are doors she says

  when we’ve escaped the belly of the beast

  borders

  are man-made

  they only divide us physically

  don’t let them make us

  turn on each other

  - we are not enemies

  after the surgery

  she tells me

  how bizarre it is

  that they just took out

  the first home of her children

  - hysterectomy february 2016

  bombs brought entire cities

  down to their knees today

  refugees boarded boats knowing

  their feet may never touch land again

  police shot people dead for the color of their skin

  last month i visited an orphanage of

  abandoned babies left on the curbside like waste

  later at the hospital i watched a mother

  lose both her child and her mind

  somewhere a lover died

  how can i refuse to believe

  my life is anything short of a miracle

  if amidst all this chaos

  i was given this life

  - circumstances

  perhaps we are all immigrants

  trading one home for another

  first we leave the womb for air

  then the suburbs for the filthy city

  in search of a better life

  some of us just happen to leave entire countries

  my god

  is not waiting inside a church

  or sitting above the temple’s steps

  my god

  is the refugee’s breath as she’s running

  is living in the starving child’s belly

  is the heartbeat of the protest

  my god