Poetry – Kanchan

Quote

excuse me, but i am falling

i’ve promised myself not to scream

when i drop from the heights i bruised

my knuckles to reach

i’ve promised myself to let go with both

hands,

deep breaths, eyes open

Poetry

An open letter to girls at Coachella

Published by Rising Phoenix Review, National Gold Medal Winner at 2020 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Who like sporting bindis and calling them “eye-dots”, the california sun melting their makeup as they breathe in the desert air. Wouldn’t it be funny, if your third eye just happened to open that day, and a fleshy indian […]

Poetry

The Great Nothing

The Indian in me spares no expense with words every sentence decked in red and gold every phrase clanging like the silver bells tied around the necks of cows tethered to stakes The Indian in me is the master of flamboyance every stanza bursting with metaphors like samosas crammed with potatoes and green peas yet […]

Poetry

Thoughts and Prayers

Thoughts and Prayers Carpet the bottom of my tongue, mismatched against the bruised upholstery of a nation stitched to the sheepskin of a gun barrel. The woolen mouth coughs into the microphone— For the victims, for the families, for the responders, for… for the screams swallowed whole by the whirling cylinder of a semi-automatic, for […]

Poetry

OPEN

at the Chaat House on the end of South Avenue wedged between the Italian restaurant and the slowly-dying bookstore, I stare at the CLOSED sign’s obituary. the books groan against the window display, not loathed just unloved—but the Chaat House burns with the struggle to live, the bruised walls blackened with the spidery handwriting of […]

Poetry

Varanasi Ablaze

where death goes, varanasi trails with her eyes closed. her swinging hips, bells on her lips, a bow-legged creature garlanded in the scent of coal ashes. ganga laps at her toes, the frothy tides coated in the charred remains of what was. but where death goes, varanasi follows in footstep. her dusky hair, and marigold […]

Poetry

Ode to Cardamom Children

We who were told by our mothers to find the veins of our spices, the brittle rivulets carved into the skeletons of fennel and cumin seeds—we opened their hearts with the kiss of a pestle. It was fenugreek who taught us spices were courted and not conquered. We can’t seem to remember when we widowed […]