While we are here
You should take off your shoes
And make yourself comfortable
Unless you worry about having ugly feet
Then you should keep your shoes on
Because now
Nothing about us is allowed to be ugly anymore.
You tell me that it is impossible
Maddening
Soul-crushing
To be where you are
And that we are trapped
We are all trapped
And then you cry a lot
And then tomorrow
You come back
And say -
Everything is perfect
I am exactly where I should be.
You say -
Sorry I cried. I am sure I look ugly when I cry.
I can be such a wreck sometimes
But I know that you know
That you aren't so easily catalogued
And I have to look away
Because I am scared I'll be tempted
To tell you
the saddest fact I know
(No, it's not the one about how
Pluto never completed a revolution around the sun
During the time it was considered a planet.)
The saddest fact I know is that
You are here
You are now
And
There's just no getting used to that.
Originally published by Kitaab 2017
Amrita V. Nair (she/her) is a poet from Kerala, who currently lives in the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples (Vancouver, Canada). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Okay Donkey, Yuzu Press, Kitaab, Anak Sastra, and Tiny Wren Lit, and was included in the Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems. Website: www.amritanair.com