How many times have I been hungover on a flight or bus the next morning?

How many times were we warned and nothing happened?

Remember when we sensed ghosts together

Eerie and cold

Many nights like these.

I know we always wanted the warmth but instead

We tended to go for unfamiliarity and adrenaline in any form possible.

Too many memories but still I always feel like I never have enough time with you

Because we speed up the hands of the clock

We never stop

Fucking shit up

Sneaking out,

Not sneaking out but still suspect,

Beers just to say well we’re drinking beer

A good cold beer at the beach,

A picnic

Oh we’ve had many of those

Picnic for days

Wish we could picnic our worries away

Fly a kite without any wind

We don’t need technicalities

If we just do

Freely the way we always do.

Speeding through stoplights

But you always stopped at stop signs

Talking real to cops

Getting asked your number too many times for me to even pay attention to

Sneaking me into a club before I even turned 17

We’ve done it all

But there’s always more to be done

Why are we so far?

I always think we have different tracks in life

Yet we are so alike and

We need each other’s company

And existence more

Than anything else.

I’m not sure where we will be ten years from now

Hell, I’m not sure where I’ll be next year.

We’re just journeying through life

Quicker than the seasons can pass

Quicker than the gulps of tequila

We are chasers

Let me lime and salt you up

Bad chick good chick

We’re none and both

So don’t box me up

Not sinners

Believers/lovers/fighters

What did you ever know about this struggle?

Fragmentation and distance

Shivering through some nights

Waiting for some sunrise

Smiling through desires and fulfillment

Stumbling from one to the next

Today it was champagne

Tomorrow I’ll

Decide tomorrow.

Time is a whirlwind darling.

Don’t get so wrapped around it

Remember that you’re alive

Don’t forget the moments we sang

And the warnings will always come

Sometimes we really will fuck

Shit up

But I don’t remember you ever regretting or

Forgiving and forgetting.

“Cause all we ever do is love.”

In India

I found

Family.

I found

14 hours pass by quickly

On a flight home

To an almost unknown home,

And yet one closest to one’s heart.

I found

Immense anticipation and excitement

To memorize names never captured by my ears before

And to capture each moment

For my own self-satisfaction

And to bring back to my other half,

The time I spent in our home without her.

I found

A far away land where food is digested

As a result of driving on the constant broken-bumpy roads

And some bad Kashmiri drivers

Who take up the whole two-way

But what really feels like a one-way road.

I found

Dirt and ways to get tan without sunlight,

Rough Rocky Mountains to no end

And monkeys hungry for bananas and bread.

I found

Inner peace — and turmoil

In moments of realization, love, care, and pride in one’s own people.

I found another expression of love

— sewa.

I found

Some shame in my past

But no regrets because I have been called to change and continue to keep a hold of my future

While hoping and trying to benefit the futures of others.

I found

Love, love, love

In a Lohri fire,

In the beating of a dholki

To the geets sung by my mother’s eldest sister,

In Bhangra on a bus ride to Punjab,

In chanting “Hindustan - Zindabad!”

And feeling “Bharat Mata Ki - Jai!” travel through my very veins

At the sight of a waving flag,

In the house my father built with his bare hands,

In the very place where he had his start

His struggle

His hard work and perseverance

Where his big heart first sprouted roots.

In embraces

Shared laughs

Tears

Eye contact

Heart to heart contact

And shooting stars

Of prayer every inch of the way.

I found

A 15 and a half hour plane ride

Back to where I began

But leaving so many I love and thirst for,

A ride of holding back tears

And meditating on the name of Waheguru to protect my family,

All over the world.

Just because I am far

Does not mean that my family doesn’t mean the world to me,

— My world…

Yes, I found

Valuable pieces of my world

In India.

A dozen pink roses of surprise.

Last night suited up

Cocktails and wine glasses

A celebration and good bye in one gulp

Restaurant bathroom sexual desires

Boring Rockefeller tree, lights off by eleven thirty pm

Lips locked past fifty blocks in Manhattan

To Queens

Yelling drunk debris

To wind beat pedestrians

And nearly crying over destiny.

What a night

Blurred of insights

And wondering what importance he will have a month from now,

Compared to the apple mint flavored hookah,

Harsh swirls of familiar smoke

Relaxing in any corner of the world

And as much a part of home as

Good food and comfort can bring while miles away.

There have been many nights like this

Where smoke has filled the cracks

And pulled together souls

— friends, lovers, or nothing…

The relevance of the whirlwind is undoubtedly permeable and long lasting,

Unlike the likelihood of experiencing an individual strength and endurance

Making its way to the sky,

An uphill roar of return to

Pumping salvation

Through to young memories

And creating petals on top of older ones.

Cheers — to filled wine glasses,

Cloudy whirls of smoke,

an aura of speculation and venture;

a stroke of fate in

Ends and beginnings in one.

You taste so broken,

Confused,

Soft and subtle

Yet questioning in each and every breath…

Lately I’ve been feeling as if

I’m drowning

in my work, my love, emotions, my lack of…

Yet it rains,

and I feel a drought inside.

Today I took a nap midday

and I dreamt I was drowning.

I felt almost as a fetus hovering in water.

I remember shades and waves of blue surrounded me.

I could not breathe,

I awoke

and yet I could not breathe.

I felt a pressure holding my body against the bed,

unable to lift up my head,

I opened my eyes just the slightest

and realized,

I may have been holding my own breath,

and so,

I breathed again.

“How can she smile?”

jellyfish-ed emotions

lack of clarity

pumps of color

pumps of stomachs

teeny, tiny, stubborn,

teenagers in a haze

let’s all just take

a walk for days

a walk to may

I serve, myself

to those blackened, silenced bodies, let’s say

hello, our recognition,

a smile.

Thus, she smiles,

her recognition

—My soul is silenced too

So I smile

breaking through myself,

scraping the paper off the walls,

there is some color after all

behind the layers and layers

of shades of grey…

Swirls of light find me sometimes

between the swigs and the inhalation,

thoughts become words and lyrical proclamations. 

The darker the night,

the brighter the light.

That is how I smile,

in panels of dual emotions;

bittersweet life and love.

—hope or trepidation.

We smile — through it all.

I’ll never forget that moment,
Standing eye to eye with the ocean.
So terrified and vulnerable
Yet empowered at the same time
Feeling like I can stand eye to eye
With anyone in this world.
—
A salt taste stained
the inside of my cheeks,
And the outer layer of every inch of
My then naked body
Was not only exposed to
But was acknowledged by
The tendrils of thought
Which entertained the deep and large power beyond me
And the specs of light high above me
Humbling my wet, copper skin
And my hopeful eyes
Boldly scanned the horizon
To put into perspective how small my body is,
How small, an ethereal epitome of life
I am, in comparison to all that is before me
And will remain in my absence
—even foot prints do not linger…
But within the same moment,
As I swayed among the rushing tide
I felt my body and I saw my body
Within myself,
In creation of myself
And in acknowledgement of
The longevity surrounding me.
After the adrenaline laughs and flowing energy,
—subtly observing and connecting with a deeper force of myself,
there was recognition, there was
A peaceful, unforgettable  moment
Quieting the tempest inside of me.

I tried to take a picture of a burning coal

Embers of my night’s desire

A red light shone through

The closet with a window

Known to me as home.

—
“It sucks being White.”

Talks of origins and the abolition of color;

Abolition

First, those apparitions

Of white American culture

Suburbs

Full of lost, light skinned teenagers

Soccer moms

Druggie sons

An era of prenups

And what we still like to call “monogamy”

thoughts like, true love might be right around the corner, to get you through the day

And growing up on Disney’s reflection of gender roles

What is the toll

It takes on the culture of America?

Tell me why instead of abolishing one’s whiteness, one would take pride and love in who they are?

Well, they are human, aren’t they?

And when they have the power and entitlement to burn the coals of life,

Why would they want it any other way…

But then again, they are human

And humanity asks,

What makes you any better,

What justifies the west over the east,

Light over dark,

And appearance over personhood?

Maybe someone said it so,

Lots of people said it so,

Institutions and time made it so.

But humanity comes to the conclusion that although the origins are blurry,

It is a sunny thought that abolition is necessary

Because I refuse to believe that a higher power decided to spew infinite venom because of some sort of greater,

deeper hate,

or condemnation of anything or anyone other than

The majority and in power.

And I refuse to believe that the world will always be this way,

The world needs change

—The world breathes change.

We, the world are stronger,

than it even sucking to be White.

You make me feel weak.

I am ill.

You are the illness. 

Starting at my fingernails…

Black and blue,

black

and

blue

from the words you said,

filling emotions in my head,

you spread…

You are my

epigastric sensation.

I’ve been pretty delusional for some time now…

But fall has come

and is slowly passing into winter.

Your change was like that of the seasons…

Love me in the spring

dull me,

in the summer

bitter sex me,

in the fall.

But what will come in the winter?

Over coming the barren trees

and slippery steps forward through the snow,

I vow to it.