My mother mourns leaving her own country so deeply it runs through her veins into mine. Bangladesh is what she knows and what she loves. She spends her time showing me her culture: spinning through dances, running through poetry, and wading through history.

The sound of the train past midnight

And a clear sort of light seek my room and cheeks

Leaving the layers of darkness, moon, and house light stale and stark

As if the lighter colored sheaths of air in the dark are unbreathable

Egg-yolks blooming in serenity

baba’s palms turn upwards

black dirt falling on the sun.

The fruit of baba’s hands

covered in spines

twisted but not the wicked way

that punctures skin.

Serpentine limbs extend in search of

sometime before the clock hit eleven,

i thought of you.

i imagined the threat your caressing fingers possess

as they trace targets on the side of my belly.

I envy the stories

They tell.

Of the East

And the West.

Of bare feet,

Guava trees,

Roasted fava beans.

Of tin water pails

That held curly-haired children

To keep the dust off their feet.

I will never call a Latino “papi”

sino héroe, soldado, sobreviviente

Brother in bondage, sibling in survival

The chains of the Hispanic clink with those of his Black cellmate

We languish under the same white gall

Too long we have forgotten

The story of breath in our lungs

Depending on who you ask

We started from clay, dust,

Half of a ribcage, the salt of the

Earth, the water of the sea;

The old gods.

I like to stare at the Ikea light fixture in the living room,

letting the middle bulb sink into my shallow eyes.

I look until it starts to hurt, my ripped fingernails gripping

the worn suede of the couch as pupils get lost in

I miss running down the street with you at half past 3

When your dad dropped you off after softball practice on Sunday afternoons.

And there was never anything more than grass stains on white pants and empty soda cans that my mom told me to throw away two hours ago.

i never met her

but i always knew she was there

my dad talked about her so fondly

“we used to drive

for hours listening to old cassette tapes

singing along

not knowing where we were going

but not caring”

sometimes

I can’t remember

why pink ice cream

smells of lakes

and trips to grandma’s house

I have no memory

of cherry chocolate chunk ice cream melting

in my mouth

But sometimes

I lick my fingers

just to make sure

The West,

To me,

Is Capoeira.

Boundless

And filled with

Saudade.

It is

The macaws

Of the Amazon.

And the macaques

Of the tamarind trees.

Montana and Wyoming

The sprawling landscape of Yellowstone

Against towering mountains

Form a place that I’d never seen before

The animals and people you meet at pull offs

Are what make the experience an experience

Yesterday, I took a walk.

I went through the park,

I passed by one empty cup,

two used napkins,

three cigarette butts.

I jaywalked across the street,

past the hardware store

and into the coffee shop.

why do i allow myself to participate in something as dangerously stupid as Love?

allow myself to participate

i say

as if i don’t

put myself up to bat

in a room full of automatic pitch machines

Wet hair clings to my cheeks

salty from the rain

Drops like tears slide down my nose

as the gray of the sky peers down upon me

Barefoot in the grass

for a few moments

I forget about the life I am crushing below

It’s strung together through the fibers on the back of the lost

Dreams that leave you sweat-stained and hopeful

How dare we doubt ourselves?

In the midst of our mist and making, we think to miss?

Maybe it was the wind that blew her to the ground.

Maybe a subtle hollow she hadn’t noticed brought her down.

Either way, she ends up in the dirt.

Earth covers the soft pink fabric draped over her

Like paint splattered on a porcelain canvas.

A ransacked village in India is where my lineage began

Women.

Women, I will

And

Can never, ever know.

Tribulations my western brain

Cannot comprehend.

They made me.

I have the blood of

Hundreds

I am from

the expressions of my people

flattened nose and slits for eyes

leathery skin and cricks in my back

each feature of mine

a reflection of my family heritage

Somehow, I pull the words out of my mouth like the colorful scarves inside the sleeve of an amateur magician

And we are both trying so hard

To save our best magic trick to use on ourselves

So that everyone can stop asking so much of us

bent backs

grasses bent in a tweak of fingers

bent my fingers bent my bones

my toes in

earth sweating dew

digging a way out

sweetness

sucking on a single clover

I will count them all

shards of glass in the mirror

every part of me adds

up to nothing

I’m standing in front of violets

in front of a Renaissance painting

and wondering what do I have

Let’s make one thing clear:

there wasn’t a big bad wolf.

Not in my story.

There was no screaming

and running of little girls.

This is an old story;

One where

the structure of power

that had devoured

momma momma momma

it was ricky it was ricky

momma don’t believe that it was ricky who done it

she thinks i killed him

momma momma momma

don’t call the fuzz

it was ricky it was ricky

in this town

words hold hostages

not meaning.

if i cry i will

bleed, and i will

lose,

integrity and i will

rip apart the frontdrop that has

made my portraits pretty

for (maybe) minutes on end.

I’ve never understood why people are so disgusted

by silverfish.

I like the little guys.

They way they scurry around from place to place,

they’ve always got somewhere to be,

perhaps because they don’t like where they are.

From the moment a screaming woman thrusts us into the world,

Soft, bloody heads first.

We begin to deteriorate.

For some, that occurs at a faster pace than others.

I feel that if I move from this spot I will die. But I take a step forward and don’t.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

Once, before the people moved in,

before they took my brothers

and sisters

and cousins

and friends,

I saw the sun.

I grew up

and I grew strong,

trying to reach the sky.

I meant to make