by Sharanya Sharma

Mom pronounces my name the same way Christian priests pronounce crucifix.
Dad and I pronounce home in utter alien tongues. Swallow vinegar, blister
with rust & go mute. He detests how I pronounce yesterday. I plead deaf to
verbs pronounced in future tense. Important to note that and is always
pronounced but. Indian and American. Faithful and menstruating. Angry and
loud. Freedom and mine. Pronouncing god correctly means pronouncing it
wrong. Culture wants to be pronounced like me & is pronounced like not me,
wait no, sounds like all? with a question mark. Family isn’t always
pronounced. should the i in family be silent? Grandfather pronounces my
name the way mom used to—in syllables that make god (am I pronouncing
that right?) a giddy toddler with paint-rivered fingers, smearing peach
horizons that seep into velvet starry blue. Laughter is pronounced like the hull
of a ship slicing through thigh-thick mist. These days dad pronounces my name
in mountain of granite rupturing from bullet’s kiss. Truth is pronounced like
palms hugging by a hospital bed. Earth is pronounced the way someone told
the first bedtime story ever dreamed. In white folks’ mouths my name trips,
an avalanche of basalt. Impotent molars split on volcanic syllables. Note: when
descendants pronounce brown like galaxy, linger. I whistle come long & slow,
in the space between foliage fluttering from trees. Yes, there is always a
pronunciation for them. Ghosts know the pronunciation of hunger. Some people
pronounce love with blood in their throats & some make it sigh in the dark. so what? Love
is pronounced however the fuck you want. On tongues labeled “used—like
new” my name sounds like memory—carousing vagrant, slanting sideways
towards sunlight. Hope sounds like rage & protest sounds like prayer, set to
your neighbor’s pulse. Important to note that in my mouth my name is iron-
spined, tall, mounted on a lion & weaponed for war, but I love most the way
my name is pronounced tomorrow: cavernous dark of temples before lamps
are lit; ocean waltzing, bridge of boulders draped like pearls on its back.

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Sharanya Sharma a writer and teacher from Washington, D.C. with an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, The Margins and Black Warrior Review, among others. You can find more of her writing at www.sharanyawrites.com.