I live in liminal spaces,
Gliding down corridors between myth and memory.
Reality is a deserted metro rail at midnight,
And I\u2026
I am smoke rising from a coffee cup left out on the countertop.
My body is but papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9\u2026
Toy clay in rainbow colours waiting to be moulded by a child’s hands.
I hear my mind call from far away
Like a radio left on in another room.
Who is this that works my hand?
Who is this that moves my pen?
Touch is a beetle creeping on this foreign thing
That wears my body like an evening.
My words run into tunnels,
Playing hide and seek with the waking mind.
All of me is a kaleidoscope of fairy lights on Diwali evening.
I am a pot of stew simmering on mother’s hearth
Bubbling away until all my senses grow soft and watery and white.
I am the dreamer
I am the dream
Shouting commands through the fog
At unruly children.
My legs, my arms, my face
Run helter-skelter in the rain
Until the mutiny cracks me open like ripe mangoes felled by a summer storm.
The coup seems to be strong
Blood will be shed.
\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who is this that works my hand?
\nWho is this that moves my pen?
\nTouch is a beetle creeping on this foreign thing
\nThat wears my body like an evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":440,"featured_media":24167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3962,3401],"tags":[1191,22,57,3949,2227,367,303,3948,1197,3734,1589,3062,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-24166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-accessibility-and-sexuality2","8":"category-fiction-poetry","9":"tag-accessibility","10":"tag-body","11":"tag-disability","12":"tag-disconnection","13":"tag-dissociation","14":"tag-identity","15":"tag-mental-health","16":"tag-mental-illness","17":"tag-mind","18":"tag-perception","19":"tag-self","20":"tag-selfhood","21":"tag-sexualities"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/440"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24169,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24166\/revisions\/24169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}