flaws and scars

Pigeons can recognize themselves in mirrors. I cannot. On self-awareness, disconnection, and finding kinship with birds who understand my woe.

I am a spitting image of my father. Same nose, same eyes, same anger. But I wish I had inherited his heart of gold too.

I have always been silent with my love. My tongue is sore from biting back words. But you make me want to scream my love from rooftops.

My mother tells me I didn't cause her pain when I was born. I came early, eager to see the world. But the world hasn't been very kind to me.

I think of all the lives I do not know, all the lives I will not touch. Reflections on strangers, connection, and the lives we glimpse but never fully understand.

I wanted to be pretty so bad I stole money for fairness cream. I chose beauty over joy. But this morning, I put on red lipstick and thought—I look so pretty.

The barafwala's bells rang on that hot summer afternoon. Hajurbuwa gave us popsicles and planted starlights in our dull skies. If God was human, it would be him.

I have plans to make a life in this city. Yet every mural, every fading color makes me feel like I'm drifting, like maybe I'm not meant to stay.

A magical encounter with a stranger child who ran into my arms. On fleeting connections and parallel universes where we might have been more.

I worry that the weight of my thoughts will crush my mind. I worry constantly. And I worry that my worries are the windows of my unsaid reality.

Poetry flows out of the earth like it's meant just for me. Morning dews wither just like human bliss.

My memory takes me back to the mud-plastered wooden house, to coconut trees and starfruit, to Tikawati didi's sherbet. Balubadi will always feel home to me.