are also felt by
so many others
my body renews itself in waves of ocean and blood
i have a very complicated relationship
with the country i was born in
our men were
slaughtered in those streets
our women were raped
while thousands were tortured
and disappeared by police
the indian state denies what they did
but no amount of yoga or bollywood
can make us forget the
sikh genocide they orchestrated
- never forget 1984
i will never be quiet
about the way my
people resisted
so i could be free
our wounds are the reason
i started writing poetry
every word
i’ve ever written was to
lead us back into our arms
they could take away
everything we have
and we’d conjure this
beautiful life up all over again
with the bones in our backs
building an empire
from the ground up
is exactly what we’re good at
ours must be
a politic of revolution
freedom can’t exist
until the most disadvantaged are free
don’t sleep on
the doormat of your potential
waiting for things to happen
when you could be
the thing that happens
you are one person
but when you move
an entire community
walks through you
- you go nowhere alone
by virtue of living
in a racist world
nonblack people are
raised to be antiblack
we are all taught that
lighter is better
- undoing
your voice
is your sovereignty
- free
you look tired he says
i turn to him and say
yeah i’m exhausted
i’ve been fighting misogyny for decades
how else do you expect me to look
no one on this planet
is in more denial
than the white man
who regardless of all
the evidence in front of him
still thinks racism and sexism
and all the world’s pain don’t exist
the world is changing
can you feel it
undressing itself and slipping into
something uncomfortable
and more just
- waves
i’m not interested
in a feminism that thinks
simply placing women at the top
of oppressive systems is progress
- not your convenient figurehead
the future
world of our dreams
can’t be built on the
corruptions of the past
- tear it down
today i saw myself for the first time
when i dusted off
the mirror of my mind
and the woman looking back
took my breath away
who was this beautiful beastling
this extra-celestial earthling
i touched my face and my reflection
touched the woman of my dreams
all her gorgeous smirking back at me
my knees surrendered to the earth
as i wept and sighed at how
i’d gone my whole life
being myself
but not seeing myself
spent decades living inside my body
never left it once
yet managed to miss all its miracles
isn’t it funny how you can
occupy a space without
being in touch with it
how it took so long for me
to open the eyes of my eyes
embrace the heart of my heart
kiss the soles of my swollen feet
and hear them whisper
thank you
thank you
thank you
for noticing
you have everything to gain
from believing in yourself
yet you spend all your time with self-doubt
there is a conversation
happening inside you
pay deep attention
to what your inner world
is saying
i stopped resisting
the unpleasant feelings
and accepted that happiness
has nothing to do with
feeling good all the time
- balance
it’s easy to love
the nice things about ourselves
but true self-love is
embracing the difficult parts
that live in all of us
- acceptance
can you hear the women who came before me
five hundred thousand voices
ringing through my neck
as if this were all a stage built for them
i can’t tell which parts of me are me
and which parts are them