Fiction & Poetry
Why does the gap feel so wide no matter how much I explain, again and again, that I do not mean to hurt him… hurt any of them? I feel torn… but Amma and Appa need my help at home. Lockdown has been so damn hard.
I gargle away the itch in the tonsils accompanying this persistent flu.
I would once again be theirs, in memory, on the day my lover would die.
From silver screens to pages penned,
Our identities explored, where journeys never end.
The governing eyes throughout history have dictated the acceptable forms of the performance of sex.
In my flesh, I must pass
for straight…
But in the digital world,
I can be me.
Why must others judge her appearance and grace
When true beauty is not confined to a face?
In a world obsessed with the outer shell,
She knows in her heart inner beauty dwells.
They lay eyes on him, they see a body out of the gym. A black, thick beard, in a need…
“Life’s too small without freshly cut coriander
Generously sprinkled on kadhai chicken.
Mint leaves blitzing their way with tomatoes
Ripe from the vine to the fingers dripping chutney –
Fragrances of earth between all this concrete.”
I smell the judgement
and the disappointment
of my parents as I enter the hall;
it stinks of their silence on my sexuality.
That’s all the big roles and ethics
All there to fulfil.
Another task,
Another box to tick
Another concrete path to rush
Quick, simple and straight.