Dear 34B,
I thought that this was going to be a normal flight.
I got to the airport two hours early. Exactly on schedule.
I took my seat in 34A. By the window.
I went through all the motions. Cell phone turned off.
You were late. The last one on.

I read about you
in my horoscopes and in a relatable tweet last week
as soon as I saw you, I knew those were written about you

When you asked me who I thought you were and I didn’t have an answer, I was worried. Why does my brain not instantly generate poetry when I think about how beautiful you are? Now that I have an answer I am terrified.

He’s got you stuck in his teeth.
Remember, summer?
          Well, tell me:
Why’d you leave him and I alone in the blue tiled bathroom?
Remember, summer?
The one with the blood stained floors that we sat on for hours.
          Well, tell me:

in orchards of lemon trees
we tiptoe, under the hanging yellow fruit
in blue moonlight, we will stay until
orange light leads us inside

My mother mourns leaving her own country so deeply it runs through her veins into mine. Bangladesh is what she knows and what she loves. She spends her time showing me her culture: spinning through dances, running through poetry, and wading through history.

The sound of the train past midnight
And a clear sort of light seek my room and cheeks
Leaving the layers of darkness, moon, and house light stale and stark
As if the lighter colored sheaths of air in the dark are unbreathable

Egg-yolks blooming in serenity
baba’s palms turn upwards
black dirt falling on the sun.
The fruit of baba’s hands
covered in spines
twisted but not the wicked way
that punctures skin.
Serpentine limbs extend in search of
hands to hold

sometime before the clock hit eleven,
i thought of you.
i imagined the threat your caressing fingers possess
as they trace targets on the side of my belly.

I envy the stories
They tell.
Of the East
And the West.

Of bare feet,
Guava trees,
Roasted fava beans.

Of tin water pails
That held curly-haired children
To keep the dust off their feet.

I will never call a Latino “papi”
sino héroe, soldado, sobreviviente
Brother in bondage, sibling in survival
The chains of the Hispanic clink with those of his Black cellmate
We languish under the same white gall
Asian men rattle wire fences in

Too long we have forgotten
The story of breath in our lungs

Depending on who you ask
We started from clay, dust,
Half of a ribcage, the salt of the
Earth, the water of the sea;
The old gods.

I like to stare at the Ikea light fixture in the living room,
letting the middle bulb sink into my shallow eyes.
I look until it starts to hurt, my ripped fingernails gripping
the worn suede of the couch as pupils get lost in

I miss running down the street with you at half past 3
When your dad dropped you off after softball practice on Sunday afternoons.
And there was never anything more than grass stains on white pants and empty soda cans that my mom told me to throw away two hours ago.

i never met her
but i always knew she was there
my dad talked about her so fondly
“we used to drive
for hours listening to old cassette tapes
singing along
not knowing where we were going
but not caring”
sometimes

I can’t remember
why pink ice cream
smells of lakes
and trips to grandma’s house
I have no memory
of cherry chocolate chunk ice cream melting
in my mouth
But sometimes
I lick my fingers
just to make sure
I’ve gotten the last drops 

The West,
To me,
Is Capoeira.

Boundless
And filled with
Saudade.

It is
The macaws
Of the Amazon.
And the macaques
Of the tamarind trees.

In the West,
I string words together like
beads.

You ask me If I know the way back home from here. I sing the words, “yes, dear” back to you like I’m someone else. You say “alright” because you’ve got nothing else to say right now; I respect that. I keep my eyes on the road. I’m not quite sure where you’re looking at this point

Montana and Wyoming
The sprawling landscape of Yellowstone
Against towering mountains
Form a place that I’d never seen before
The animals and people you meet at pull offs
Are what make the experience an experience
Waiting for Old Faithful to burst

Yesterday, I took a walk.
I went through the park,
I passed by one empty cup,
two used napkins,
three cigarette butts.
I jaywalked across the street,
past the hardware store
and into the coffee shop.
I ordered a small latte,

why do i allow myself to participate in something as dangerously stupid as Love?
allow myself to participate
i say
as if i don’t
put myself up to bat
in a room full of automatic pitch machines

Wet hair clings to my cheeks
salty from the rain
Drops like tears slide down my nose
as the gray of the sky peers down upon me
Barefoot in the grass
for a few moments
I forget about the life I am crushing below
With my eyes closed

Giggling, Aditi grabs my hand and twirls me along as her ghagra’s elaborate mirror embroidery catches in colorful lighting.

It’s strung together through the fibers on the back of the lost
Dreams that leave you sweat-stained and hopeful
How dare we doubt ourselves?
In the midst of our mist and making, we think to miss?

But you need it, you said. I thought you wanted to be beautiful. I slammed my hands on the wheel of your Land Rover and pulled over to the side of the road near the big houses with green lawns and trampolines, Norfolk Way.

Maybe it was the wind that blew her to the ground.
Maybe a subtle hollow she hadn’t noticed brought her down.
Either way, she ends up in the dirt.
Earth covers the soft pink fabric draped over her
Like paint splattered on a porcelain canvas.

A ransacked village in India is where my lineage began
Women.
Women, I will
And
Can never, ever know.
Tribulations my western brain
Cannot comprehend.
They made me.
I have the blood of
Hundreds

Even when she was young, Sonya had never been afraid of the supernatural.

I am from
the expressions of my people
flattened nose and slits for eyes
leathery skin and cricks in my back
each feature of mine
a reflection of my family heritage

Somehow, I pull the words out of my mouth like the colorful scarves inside the sleeve of an amateur magician
And we are both trying so hard
To save our best magic trick to use on ourselves
So that everyone can stop asking so much of us