I strip
search for woman
but there is only girl. A constant
vigil of unwanted hair for removal.
I tame
fur lined lips traced to Mediterranean
roots− threatening to unravel
a farce constructed to fit.
I betray
flesh razed in wax strips
fleecing skin & hard-won purse.
− a depilation identikit.
I detangle self from family
trussed to tresses. An isolation
of foreign threads.
The aesthetic dictates a glabrous lip
centrefold− in a denuded line-up
under duress.
Chinese people have a concept of ‘face’
somewhere between reputation and fancy airs
and just as invisible and omnipresent
Growing up in Australia
I struggled with the faces to put on
the invisible prison of expectation
and differences in values as simple as respect
it wasn’t earned, it came with being older
and you had to abide by rules that came from your elders
even the one forbidding ice cream during your period
It would be easier to commit murder
than to get permission for a sleepover
It was easy to commit manslaughter
because everything that caused your parents’ heartbreak
would kill them, they would die
from the shame
So I tried to blend in
I begged my mother for a lunch that didn’t smell
studied hard and didn’t fool around
knowing the gossip from aunties in the streets
would come back home like a boomerang
After a certain age, you’re told don’t ever date boys
yet they want a grandson to spoil
Boys are better, they carry the family line
Asian boys are preferred partners
it’s okay to marry a white boy
but don’t ever admit to liking brown or black boys
Remember to wear sunscreen
because you wouldn’t want to be brown
You might be mistaken for a domestic helper
I was raised by one when I was a baby
I had a second mother
in a place that I don’t name
you never talk about it
because your coworkers told you
it’s weird
i
We begin with a desire to devour.
I am a citizen of want, my body
a country of bruises from your teeth.
I am happy to pay in sweetness
as long as it is you who takes
my lips. Once, upon coming
to a clearing, we hurriedly shed
our clothes, feral things whose
vocabulary knows no waiting.
I am happy to be here before you,
palms up, wanting and being wanted.
Once more, and once again.
ii
Someone once took me to bed
and wanted to fuck in the dark.
I was a body and yet not a body.
Someone mistook me for not being
me when they read my words but forget
my name. Where do I hide my shame?
I was a body and almost somebody.
We damn well know: to be brown is
to always be guilty of being brown.
iii
Who wouldn’t want this,
hands around my throat,
hands that cup my breasts,
hands that grip my hips.
Let me whisper confessions
to the shadows on your skin:
When I see your open mouth
I hear the selfsame howl from
deep in my womb: I am your
leviathan among the woods.
iv
This is what it means to shiver
beneath someone’s gaze,
your possession teaching me
the length of my spine.
Who wouldn’t want you,
telling me you’re home
and safe from standing
before an invisible firing line.
In the subway, at the pharmacy,
at the grocery, in the park:
when have we ever known
what it means to be apart.
No one can stop me
from holding your hand,
not even the demons that
corrupt their heart.
v
Would that there be a menagerie
inside your warm body for every
living thing that you might have been:
the tenderness of a butterfly, perhaps,
or the startling softness of a bird.
A sweet longan.
vi
How do you conjure
an ever after. I wish
nothing more than
to follow where this leads.
Our bodies uncurl from the core
and everything hurts
while we stand in line at the bank,
or when we walk across the street
to get to our door.
When they call you names
or when they call mine,
I will always want you
whispering in my ear:
Why not right here.
vii
Oh, husk that houses who I am!
Almond eyes, thick thighs,
and every ember that has
settled on my dark skin.
I want your wildness—
and damn the rest of them.
Mostly I just thought it was a really funny character
my ears were the first to leave
heading off without packing anything
lobes tired of hanging on waiting
to hear something different
tired of listening to
the same old
same old
I think I’m pretty brave with putting myself out there and looking stupid and doing things that are potentially
offensive
My eyes saw my ears take off
saw how easy it could be
without a slight or doubt in sight
to not have to watch
over and over
the same old
same old
It’s kind of funny that there’s only certain races that it’s an issue
My hands grew tired of holding on
reaching out for tomorrow
nails bitten to the quick
by my anxious mind
palms furious
the same old
same old
I’ve already gone far enough with the blackface thing — I can’t go much further.
The last things to leave were my feet
my heart my mouth my wairua
stuck around keeping my brown skin
good company
it will take time for
the new old
new old
| |
SKIN |
HOMELAND |
GOLD |
BODY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEANING |
warm brown earth turning over // end of the rainy season |
বাংলােদশ // the space where we were planted |
sunlight passed down from wrist to wrist // translated: “a gift for you” |
the aperture that our ancestors inherit |
| SYNONYMS |
truth, motion // growth, carambola see also: gold, body |
lychee flesh, blood spilt for a language see also: body |
honey, spark, summer see also: skin, stolen |
the first incision into a lychee’s skin see also: homeland |
| ANTONYMS |
paint, mimicry, false body |
rewritten memories; burnt histories // colonised bodies |
glass, temporary |
ego, land lying fallow, cheap mockery |
| GREAT LOVES |
healing; sweetness // slowness |
birdsong, mustard oil, storytelling |
the shape of a jhumka // the chiming of small bells |
celebration // Brown Joy |
(kiskis kuskus/
kiskis kuskus)
rub your skin with
glutathione soap
until it rips the veins
in your blood
erase every spot,
as if robbing every
line of your
generation’s fate,
tell me –
so you would want to have
the same undertones
as your grandparent’s
oppressors?
tell me –
in your skin
bleached with
the idea of race
to being
to belong
they’ve taken away what
is supposedly yours.
and now what is yours will
never be supposedly whole.
I was drunk I was sitting in the sand I was thinking about the past my children my country the mines I was drunk and I was not careful not thinking barely awake in the close to midday sun the sun the country the fires my loved ones I was crying at some point but a man shouldn’t cry I was just drunk and singing I threw the bottle at a car at a house at a window I was miserable but it was good to throw the bottle the glass shattered the glass made a noise I wanted to set something on fire but no I wouldn’t I wouldn’t do it to my country my country which is nothing like it used to be I was drunk that’s all I wasn’t harming anybody I was having a good time by myself everyone left me I used the last twenty dollar I had to buy myself a bottle just one I saved the rest for later I had forethoughts I thought of the future unlike what they say I think I do think about the future anyway the day was getting on I saw some kangaroos crossing the road they went for the lawn life is easy for them if they hang around towns there are grasses I was thirsty I went to the drinking fountain it was out of order so I went for the bottle though it didn’t quench my thirst I roamed about singing I was thinking I was thinking about the deaths and suicides amongst our peoples I was feeling sad I was feeling bad for them I was drinking to buy myself an hour a minute of peace I was drinking because it was the only way but sometimes I get angry I get angry and start throwing bricks I am so miserable I throw bricks at those white flash houses fancy courtyards the church I was sleeping against a tree when they came and got me they handcuffed me and threw me into the back of a white van the sun was high the sun was high I was riding it was getting hot in there I banged on the sides I banged on the hot white steel let me out let me out let me out I hollered and the white fellas kept cursing and I kept cursing and the sun was getting higher and I was getting higher and I flew at the walls I flew at the prison I built for myself I banged my chest against it I banged my head against it and then it all got so much I couldn’t breathe I couldn’t holler no more I kept roasting and roasting in the heat I kept turning and turning on the floor I got tossed back and forth like a tennis ball I sweated I stank I asked for something to drink blood on my head blood on the floor blood flooding my eyes I thought about the color of the sand how I would have loved to dig my body into the coolness underneath and I kept dreaming and dreaming until suddenly I stopped and I was where I wanted to be in the sand and in the earth in the trees and in the leaves in the winds and in the sun dancing with the elements with the spirits with those that came before me with the whole universe and I was simple and I was clean and I was happy and I was happy
and I was happy
I longed for a chameleon life,
my brown rind most seemly for family gatherings,
peeled with the telling and retelling
of myths and collusions
from the old country,
for the gifting of clay pots and gold
from aunts who’d returned,
suitcases bulging with the foreign-familiar,
inscrutably sable like the mustard seeds
in my mother’s kitchen,
white for school,
for loitering underage in bars, near railways,
in packs selected by popularity,
milky as college captains
blessed with sameness and blue eyes,
as undeniably wasp-toned as Marsha Brady,
I bled for the melting pot,
watched red turn to rust,
humbly explained my origins at soirées,
wanting mostly to slip
the coat my ancestors bestowed
with its dark buttons stitched shut
and me, captive, perspiring
inside the Melbourne grey,
my cinnamon breast
in a lover’s grasp,
his fingers stretched like lily-manacles,
stark against my hide,
dragging me out of the east
into a decadent west
with all its comfort
and discomfort.
Drip, drip, drip; dollars, democratic, bling.
Blood, blood, crip; homophones: cell, celery, steel.
Because it would let you carry off hot pink
the way the black models do, the way I do,
I meet your light face with confusion
I feel rivers rise under my cheeks
in this wide and sunburnt country
what colour should dark people blush?
I don’t know why I pause before I tell you
that the man who plays the didgeridoo
on Bourke street called me sister.
They think you’re one of them lot!
you say and mimic my head-shake
your eyes roll like earth marbles.
Later, my desi friends bristle too,
all fellow savarnas thinking:
It’s one thing for white people
to see only our colour and race
(not our high and pitiless birth)
but for “them” to think we are the same!
Here in hot Christmases, you daub zinc
on your face like grandfather’s caste marks
just as easy to wash off
Strange camouflage, I thought, because
it just makes you whiter in this brown land;
litmus that shows you don’t belong.
You don’t need the sunscreen, mate you said
Surely you get enough sunshine over there?
But no, it singes us too, some of us,
coffees too hot, poppies too tall and ruddy,
My brown skin, sure, dark enough for pink
but flecked with inherited prejudice
melanoma from both our suns.
And what does it say about us,
That we turn
And turn
And turn
Turn a funeral into a festival, a spectacle,
Because mourning feels too heavy, dark spots
On our already dark skins.
We cast off headscarves in fear, force ourselves
To watch as others claim them,
A misplaced notion of
Solidarity.
Do not show how this hurts.
We are the ‘good ones’,
Who always forgive
Our murderers and our saviours,
Sometimes both the same.
Do not let them see any moment
Of weakness, of anger, of emotion. Instead,
We school our sorrow and our rage
Into something more…
Acceptable, palatable,
Something that would make them say
“See, these are the good ones.”
“They are one of us.
They are us.”
The names of the dead are lost, whispers
In the chatter around politicianscelebrityactivists,
Vying to outdo one another
In this new exercise of publicity.
Is this what it means, to be “one of us”?
To have our pain leave our lips and float away,
Unheard, instantly lost and forgotten,
Forgotten, like the reason
People have gathered in the streets:
Supporting you in this difficult time
Thoughts and prayers for your community
Aren’t you glad you are here, where it’s safe?
They are here
Not to bear witness, but to be witnessed,
To take up even more space
So we,
And our grief,
And our rage,
May not be seen or heard
Unless we fit the bill,
Unless our bodies and our stories
Are displaced, replaced,
By this single one:
This is not us
This is not us
This is not us
But it is.
My mixed body is a battleground.
17 years of bloodshed, the source slyly
laying in my epidermis. (My melanin an atom bomb)
I imagine the successful egg and sperm did not
Join, merge or unite- but
Shoot, destruct, colonise, subjugate
A coloured baby born in war:
Wreaking havoc, leaving carnage
By outward appearance.
My parents wear blue helmets, assuaging
Tension between grand-parents.
I marauder through their homes,
A vestige of the 2003 massacre when I
Was born a bit browner than they expected.
Unsalvageable, yet I am sequestered to the shade,
Bequeathed strong sunscreen like a reluctant peace treaty
Victory is pyrrhic when I intentionally tan
Youthful sedition manifesting in lackadaisical hours
Under the relentless terroristic sun. But
appeasement is over, peaceful co-existence with mind and body
-no more- as I crave the bounty of Brown skin.
I understand my privilege: the ability to
Wear my lineal heritage and be seen
For better or for worse, this is my gain:
Ancestral connection won each glimpse in the mirror
Brown skin is my shining armour.
for Ariana
daydreaming in togs, day-napping
on blow-up mattresses in winter sun—
we could barely hear ourselves over the battering ram
of birdsong. an island pigeon
flew low over our bodies as we
tried to spot the willy wagtail camouflaged
in canopy. we lay top-tailed, all
gooseflesh and belly-laughs.
if this sand could, it would
speak in sighs.
Is this a revolution?
Have we finally found a solution?
We can’t erase the past
Hiding behind masks
Injustices rejection discrimination
World wide condemnation
Your Judgement bashing venomous words
You Left us bleeding on the kerb
I am black I am proud
Ssshhh I am being loud
We are exhausted we are hurt
Now our voices will be heard
Can you see what I have been through?
Systemic violence perpetuated by you
You will never fully understand
I do accept the extension of your hand
Stand with me walk with me
Only you can help create peace
My mother is from the interiors of Sumari.
Forgive me, I am brown
and I speak Garhwali – a dialect
from the hills. I once sat on a
hurricane of love and travelled
far, as far as Haworth, to be flanked
by the Brontes; long dead.
Cobbled on streets, touched the moors
having left Heathcliff in Srinagar
I walked towards the Humber bridge
and settled my feet in Scarborough,
where my favourite Anne Bronte was buried,
after an illness, which then, had no cure.
My Brownness I shared with my
mates from Thessaloniki.
How beautiful are these women from
the Mediterranean, said my Welsh boyfriend.
I pinched his cheeks and swallowed my curses
with a lyrical smile. This much of decency
I clung to, but it weighed me down.
Years full of spit and shame, scabs and screams.
Hey bog! How brown! Ugly frown!
Where’s your town?
I let them be.
This space that I called my own
I held in my squatter’s palm.
Who cares about identity!?
Are we here for a fun time?
The run time for this movie is
Three hours and twenty-eight minutes:
A long time even if we’re on time if we
Unwind and confide
Remind one another
The high tides and the low tides
And the show times and the sun dried
Tomatoes get better with some thyme.
All we have are one-liners and stop
Watch timers.
I am a bit red from the sun I am
A bit unwell and undone and
Unhinged, on the run from
My crisis, what crisis? Really, there was naan.
I was the one who mixed and mixed
From pure bread to pun. Intentionally,
Or unintended maybe, they asked, where
Are you from? I said down under, I was from
The south of Australia. Centre, the central
Steppes of Asia I said under there, you know,
Under the cloth there is a sloth who
May be too lazy for fun. From lazy eye
To lazy eye we questioned conundrums. We
Sat in circles and created referendums,
Sought markers from PCR runs and
Shook fists at PRC guns, hid behind
Great wonders and drank red serums,
Hoping for an answer to our mind’s deliriums.
But who cares about identity?
Are we here for a fun time?
I’m here to place an arm around her, I’m
Here to go on a verdant adventure
With people to whom food is the greatest pleasure
With people who throw the greatest treasure
Into the pits of the fire, face still hot with desire
Isn’t that fun?
In the orchard of apple groves
She waits for her lover by an apricot tree
I think she drove herself to madness deliberately
A transcendental madness, lovingly
Wondering where on earth they could be
Together, together with no identities.
They spoke until the end of time, until
The sun burned a hole through the sunnier climes
And we stopped watching the clock to dig deeper into
This soliloquy. Who cares about identity..?
I just came here for a fun time and
Honestly I’m feeling so attacked right now.
I say, perhaps I’m wired this way, always
Tired this way, always inspired yet
Dismayed to see what transpires in
Me.
why you big brown bearded boy wear a dress
they press me, and dispossess me
soliciting clarifying address on this repressed mess of largesse
it’s in their blood to suppress you see
make me undress and acquiesce you see
my blessed intersectional existence seems not my own you see
like many of your own, my kin, our ancestry a sin
interrogated, assaulted, destroyed, and then censored in history
those who are like me cannot thrive, deprived, and buried alive in discourteous antiquity
emboldened men, full of gobbledygook, spreading lies, stealing land, starting wars
i just know you crook Captain-Cook looking fuckers will Endeavour to make me all yours
gotta profess that many public queries are quite cruel, some benign, some curious
the fact to depress is that most are quite furious
why you big brown bearded boy wear a dress
you’re not allowed to express
gotta confess, these reservations bring me real stress and distress
despite my visage, scraps of privilege, me too have been pillaged, body trauma, sacrilege
they think we’ve made progress in excess, claiming minor success
that is but a half-truth, scribbled down in many a book
unless we come out and assess
as one tribe, admit they mistook and forsook, and they took and retook
nevertheless, i digress, i speak of one grisly peak, not unique for this freak
informing this bleak poem, and all that i seek
one particular repugnant street specimen tried his best to transgress and oppress
some studderin scum of a white brutha from anotha motha
just like all the otha that strived to smotha my greater than thou
my great greatest grandmotha
as much as you tried, she lives on in me
and you are left empty by yours, a husk of dead air
now hollerin trashy white noise, fat fist raised high to scare
cheered on by his bad boys, beat, butcher, burn this trash queer
why you big brown bearded boy wear a dress
in that split-second i split, racing thoughts coalesce
see to me, i decree, this body flying carefree
in the midst of all the hate that you give
or the death you might bring
i will be spillin on your lap my black tea
the politest reply to your enquiry
my friend not a friend, but i portend that you’ll mend one day
the message i’ll send before my end, is that i’ll do it my way
you see
my gender is fluid; it is akin to water
it slips through my fingers and takes many forms
it is a destructive force of nature, is a wonder to behold.
Sometimes I wear huge sweaters like my Amama (grandma)
The mix of itchy wool and polyester wraps around me
Her presence engulfs me as I sit on our rickety front porch
Sipping her famous masala chai, I reminisce
The flavors of the sweet cardamom and zesty ginger take me back to a place I’ve only been
in my head
In this place, I try to imagine what her life would have been
What battle scars she has been forced to carry
Why is strength always portrayed in destruction?
The weight of the sun must be heavy
But yet, every day, twice a day, God is able to carry its weight
Does that not take strength? Does that not take munificence?
I have learned strength is not only what you did but why you tried
This is why silence has become my new mother tongue
There is strength is silence
There is strength in vulnerability
I fight fear when my hair is being braided and oiled in the laps of women
Women who have fought fear to survive
Fear I won’t ever have to experience because of their strength
I think of my Amama, cooking in the tiresome kitchen
Melted ghee making golden sizzling lakes
Her callused hands working a million miles a minute
What made her who she is?
Who forced her to grow up?
Was is the fact she had to walk hours in the blistering sun to get a single bucket of water for
her family?
Or maybe it was the fact she taught to hate her rich brown skin because of colonizing British
beauty that caged her mind and spirit
Behind her hard exterior there is mountains of pain
Pain she could never show
Pain she feels because the proclamation of being a woman was stolen from her
When she tells me these stories, I hear the throbbing dejection echo from her voice
But I admire her for it
Not only because she went through it, but because she lived to tell it
She is my only definition of valimai
Someone painted the face of evil
with the exposed brain
(or what looks like the exposed brain)
of a Predator, thinly camouflaged with hair,
dyed blond, swept back and patted down
like the pompadour roof of a tongkonan,
where Torajas keep the dead before their burial.
Someone said the face has eyes almost blue
like the Night King, however,
with puffy under-eye bags, veined and greyish,
it looks more like a four-eyed monster.
The nose of a pig would suit it better
than the nose of a WASP.
But worst of all is the mouth, always twisting,
in scorn, in derision, in rage, in hate,
spewing out a lava flow of lies:
‘War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength,’
climate change is a Chinese hoax,
nuclear arms are lucrative deals,
windmills cause cancer,
unsavoury truths are fake news,
and on and on…
The face of evil is not
‘a cancer on … democracy’;
it is not
‘a cancer on the presidency’;
such a face is the beginning
of the end of us all.
small child/grown woman
mother/father
white/brown.
a girl was born
not white/not brown.
nearly white/nearly brown.
in the winter her skin was white
like the snow/like her mother.
in the summer her skin was brown
like a nut/like her father.
children asked her where she was from.
australia/sri lanka.
dichotomies the world made for her
melted at birth/vanished through growth.
nearly white/nearly brown
but she was always human.
“Warning: Black boys are in danger of becoming extinct” — trey anthony
black, tossed to a scattering brown.
how does this even tuck in?
chaffs they kite into stars,
brittle as a badge chewing a whole brand— me & my teenage boys,
known for all of our queer bodies.
we shove to flight,
& die with white greetings.
knifing phrases, like “negro bears no ego, so what’cha gon do bingo!”
we sponge it into our loin:
glyphs that trace their letters to our ribs.
black can’t mat his skin for holes to breathe,
the imams would kill him on their kneels.
prayer kills faster than grief,
makes you a preying thing:
like loss barreling through your skin,
poisoning your boyhood.
black foamed like white heavens,
mealing from shack to shack,
bright & faded,
like an elder skein.
how does this even tuck in without a song?
chants, to prune our skin & seduce it colors.
& teach it not to die,
& not to be equally yoked with white believers.
& not to believe that the sky do not believe in our craft;
how it wave says I’m one amongst dust till I groom my skin.
like how does this tuck in with all blacks,
when we fold our hands to fake flaps?
why should it be us selling our own kites to main boys, living in principal streets?
the slum should love our records,
if all that’s here is fleeting.
I parent my body into adopting a boy skinny as me,
barely shaved, with an accent for grief:
a language blacks knew before they knew their skin.
Cognitive dissonance is an Asian woman
who has to carry her grandmother’s special Phở
in her lukewarm blood to impress at dinner parties,
be after schooled in strings and numbers:
a hothouse orchid with no outside breeze
She has to be an ingenue unwise to the ways of men
who largely want her for her smallness
the wriggling cheongsam the flutter fingers
then stillness: bamboo waist and water lily serene
lickable caramel against their burly chests
Everyone loves a happy migrant story:
leaky prawn trawler to valedictorian
a seam of jade trapped in ancestral dust
to be extracted and rubbed to sheen
she is blazing a trail to prove her worth.
Now that we are
Two brown women
In this country that still asks
Where we’re really from
There are so many things
I wish I’d told you
Your great grandmother shelled peas in a steel bowl
Your great grandfather sat on park benches with invisible signs
Your great aunties made magic in the kitchens of my childhood
Your great uncles carried imperialism in their bow-legged bodies
Now that we are
Two brown women
In this country that still
Can’t pronounce our names
There are so many things
I wish I’d told you
Mustard seeds only pop in very hot oil
Summer rain makes me cry
Round chapatis are hard to make
I still smell death in marigolds
