Nishaani/Place Marker

*May 29, 2010*



It was a marker that that helped us keep our place,


Keep our pace


Amongst an ornate assemblage of


Teethed and looped and dotted and voweled


Letters that spoke their two way connections


From our prophetic puckered pronouncements


Partial, imperfect


To a perfect past


Carved in ears and passed and passed


To present


Gathering sentiments like petrified tears


That we now pluck from pages


And paste onto our cheeks.



And this synchronic mourning


That melts each individual into a mass movement


Of self-deprecation and discipline


It is the antithesis of freedom.


Taking my file within rows of pastel hoods


Trimmed with sequined flowers and embroidery


My body numb


Legs folded


Folding layers of sweat and petticoat and gagra underneath them


My feet diagonally pushed to my right side


Staggered


My left hand propping up my weight I feel imbalanced


Teetering


Aching and surging muscles that flash on and off with blood choked and draining


Imprints made in numb skin I’ll find later


Of patterns sewn into hem lines


By women who make sure its placed just right.



Under the rida


My right hand still,


On my chest


Rests against my heart and cups it in warmth


As if to say


I’ll never muffle its expressions


And irregular murmurs


Or beat it with viciousness


To extract empty empathy.


But I see past my obscured periphery


And detect the mechanics of the mass


In rhythm


Elbows cranking and rotating


Becoming a fulcrum of abuse


Jolting peaceful chests into palpitations


Guilt, pity, poison, punishment


Contrived sentiment


From hijacked and exploited memories


A denial of human pain


A valorization of suffering done for divinity.



Hands, brutal


Clap chests in unison


And wring out sobs


Alienated from our bodies


And each other and


Especially our God


We beat out beautiful beats


And forget to mourn


The loss of ourselves.