after Chen Chen
With Rumi in my purse (I’ll be
in the waiting room a while). Without
waterproof chappals. With Bandra in monsoon.
With Fem21 powder mixed in cold-pressed
celery for a morning routine—chaste berry
ashwagandha. Without last month’s savings,
now replaced by Fem21. With periods that arrive
like my anger: always late. With child-wed
great-grandmothers whose angers
could not afford to be on time.
Without a tongue that knows Marwari but loves
to French. With Dadi saying zits are the worst
thing that could happen to a woman. With a face
full of pockmarks. With Dr Siddhu’s voice
in my head: that happens when DHEA is high.
do sport. move. Without knowing how to swim.
With idiocy enough to raft in the Relli’s
high tide in an ill-fitting lifejacket.
With Spotify looped to "Running Up That Hill."
With a father till 391 days ago. With my mother’s
anger at her mother. With an ache to make myself fall
in love with my body. With chipped burgundy shellac.
With a childhood of hearing you have piano fingers.
With a love for eating dosa at Sunday breakfast
with my piano fingers. With a love for eating dosa
at any time. With a secret sisterhood shared with
Chughtai’s post-colonial daughters: from wanting
to forever veil my face like Goribi to wanting to bat
my lashes at every man who owns a house
in our hood, like Lajjo. With Dadi scrubbing
masoor, malai on my skin—to make it
white. With a Google search for Dali’s shapeshifting
phalluses in yesterday’s web history. With Regé-Jean Page’s
trench-deep voice, toasted like a husk of tobacco,
lulling me to bed at 4 a.m. Without enough
melatonin. With telling myself I’d never get a guy
like Regé-Jean Page. With an ache to have faith
in God. Without a single god (from our thousands)
to call out to when called whore
in public. With knowing it’s no better
in private. With 13 years of muscle memory
that cannot erase the Odissi squat. Without a single
headstand. With knowing my privilege
to buy into self-care as I squeeze a drop
of copaiba under my tongue. Without a mirror
from which my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
does not stare back at me. With telling
& telling & telling myself that I am not that.
