amma

i. her

she sang words of her mother while bathing me in the sink.

gold she proudly gifted me adorned my two-year old ankles.

when I wept and dove into her bed,

she said think of Christ and sleep will come.

Christ never answered me, but her warmth invited slumber.

she carried me on her back and shouldered the weight of my childhood.

she smelled of Sandalwood and the Jasmine flowers that she was so good at taking care of.

mother dressed me in velvet skirts and shiny shoes for Sunday mass,

our leather heels clicked in sync as we wove between pews.

she spoke a language fluent in forgiveness,

second chances tumbling from her tongue akin to ripe mangoes spilt from a wicker basket.

her being is one of beauty,

rounded cheeks and prominent almond eyes.

shadowed eyebrows that spoke for her.

her hazelnut skin dotted with darkened valleys,

her flowery fingers meant for art, wrinkled with the labor of me.

she let me scream and torment her,

and for that, I am sorry.

ii tales of adolescence

mother prepared me to accept defeat but did not prepare me to withstand rejection.

she did not prepare me for friends making fun of the dark body hair my ancestors gifted me,

but when I begged, she bought me a razor and chided me when I nicked myself.

she did not prepare herself for when her packed curries were thrown away because kids said they smelled funny,

but she wordlessly packed processed sandwiches instead.

she did not prepare herself for when her daughter steamrolled the hair she spent so long nurturing,   

but she massaged coconut oil into my damaged roots every saturday.

she did not prepare me for wanting to be white with every cell in my being,

but she held me like a child as I wept to my ashamed motherland.

she learned to omit her heritage for the sake of her kin,

so I never took the time to learn the language her mother spoke.

for that, I am truly sorry.

iii. wandering roots

mother wants me to know the women of our lineage,

the blooming women of her valleys.

the ones who simmer cardamom and ginger in aluminum thawas.

whose cotton saris are dipped in sweat from laboring in tea fields.

whose kajal is the color of frying ash.

the ones who sculpted her from the crimson sand their very toes dug into.

I was broken,

but mother said they could heal me.

I scoffed and demanded proof.

and so it began,

their copper honey filled my cracks until I burst with amber sunlight.

their village seamstress stitched me back together, so I only leak with golden stormlight.

with floating hymns bouncing off the shallow walls of my conscience,

there they held me, mourning what I once was but welcoming who I could be.

I am now a mere reflection of                                     them.

a rustic rangoli of their spirits.

mother now says I remind her of those flowering women of from her past.

she sees their intensity in my two chocolate windows.

she says I have their lips, from which words of glittering defiance flow.

she proclaims even the hair on my head is thick with their everloving Presence.

their breaths fill my lungs now,

in

out

like the salty tides that kiss their worn feet.

for Amma I am grateful.