I come from ash, I was told
The same ash which was later dotted on my forehead
When my arms were folded and my head was bowed
Before idols, who were more friend than goddess or god.
I come from passion
Red hot, oozing
Like the molten lava that flowed beneath my feet
From the oil gently massaged through my locks
“I swear in the sun it’s brown in spots!”
I come from melodies and ragas and prose
I come wrapped in song instead of blankets or bathrobes

I speak in the tongue of the ivory-skinned.
Always have, but it wasn’t good enough until
I learned to chew on every letter
Until the alphabet sounded just like slobber
Eye-urn not i-ron, pass-tell, not paste-ul
I learned only to re-learn
Because they’ll never learn to keep it zipped.
I nurse the angry callouses on my fingers
Deepened by the steel strings on my guitar
The guitar which has begun to feel more god than friend
The guitar which is at the forefront of my teenage tantrum
The bitterness toward the patriarchy paints the black on my nails
And I strum this angst into oblivion

Someday I too will return to oblivion
At the last of my seven lives
But in this one, number unknown
I just want to write, and write, and write, and write
Until the words start to sound just right
Everything I left bubbling up inside
Put on paper and bound
Sitting on the laps of empaths
Who are more stepping stone than human,
And to them, my pages will be
More mirror than paper.