My blood is not pure.

Siphoned through custom it puddles as an unholy poison. 

A mixture between castes that courses sin through my veins

Broken tradition seeps through my marrow

and pools black in the hardened pupils of my grandmother

every time my parent’s marriage is brought up.

16 years, 2 grandchildren, 8,000 miles and still

her wounds scar enough that tears bleed from her eyes

whenever her mind fades into the past and my father’s betrayal

the betrayal I am borne from.

Ritual binds her in barbs as my first new memory

of my grandmother I have not seen in 10 years is a gesture to my father

then her averting her gaze as he pulls me from the dining room 

and explains how time has turned discrimination into a tradition, Grandma’s tradition

that my existence is a splatter spilled outside the lines of scripture she follows

that I am split between castes with my mother, that to my grandmother, I am unclean.

Rules scald through my skull and dye my memories

I cannot taste the same dishes,

I cannot use the same plates,

I cannot drink from the same cups,

I cannot eat with my grandmother, because I am unclean

because though her faith overpowers our bonds in hemoglobin

it feasts off our blood sacrifice.