Girl Reading, Vase of Flowers, 1922 â Henri Matisse
My poem is lactose-intolerant. Itâs a baker allergic to flour, A depressed comedian, A theatre kid with social anxiety, Who works in customer service. My poem is un undefeated irony. And what if over the years, It has fallen slightly in love with pain
â because until it doesnât hurt a little, it doesnât seem real.
My poem smells of Bhopalâs methyl isocyanate. It stands beside Marsha P. Johnson And does a drag-dance In the Stonewall Riots. Itâs a young Palestinian boy Wearing his dead fatherâs shirt, Fixing a tattered teddy bear, With cotton leaking out, like blood. Being political was never a choice, Because my poem has seen children Playing with bricks, bones, guns And has grown out of red aluminous soil
â the way poppies and widows grow, out of dead bodies.
My poem doesnât look pretty, With incurable sores of dictatorship On its innocent tongue. It cannot romanticize Van Goghâs paintings Plagued by psychiatric illness, But peels oranges and tears leftover bread,
â giving its loved one the bigger piece.
My poem is overweight, Trying hard to fit within the 2200 characters, As God and Adam try to hold hands In the Sistine Chapel; đąđđźđ°đŽđ” đ”đ©đŠđłđŠ, đŁđ¶đ” đŻđ°đ” đČđ¶đȘđ”đŠ. It lives in the next Auschwitz, And creates art on algorithm-based feeds That feed on simultaneous sponsored ads for
â âsexy XS sized corsetsâ and âhow to be thin in 3 weeksâ.
On days my ideas fade out like a lightroomâs vintage film, On days my words donât fit after the prolonged maternity leave, On days my metaphors are not a trending hashtag, but a mere clichĂ©, I close my diary and wonder,
â does my poem still look colorful and picturesque from the outside?