they’ve seen me in passing

without even realising

that hope is what makes me

able to stand underneath the californian sun

hope lets me feel

the ground beneath our feet

the breeze against my cheek

and the heartbreaks i experience

without hope

rather than burning alive

underneath the californian sun

i would be burnt ashes drained down

the holy ganges river

   mere poorvaj ke ghar

they would look down on me

face full of sharam

bekar gayi

   bekar gayi

she went away to waste

   she went away to waste

with hope my dada aur ma

can say freely

kuch banegi

   kuch banegi

i’ll be something

   i’ll be something

i became something

The sun didn’t kiss these boys

It hugged them

The way you would with your best friend before

Leaving for a long time

It hugged them and

It made their skin the color of a caramel

And their hair like the sand

Blowing the way the sand does

In the wind.

The sun let the boys go into the

Waves

Where salt sprinkled stars across their face

Stars disguised as freckles

The boys watched the ocean

Learned how to behave

They watched as the ocean made people think nothing of it

And then teased those who didn’t know right

But let them off the hook

And they did see the way it devoured

They vowed not to devour but

They learned how to be the boys

who were hugged by sun and tossed by waves.

they have taken her.

hope.

she is trapped in the great big house made of new money & keys

that open nothing anymore. it is named america.

you can hear her,

                                   listen! her cries cut the eyelids of the senate. they are all blind nowadays.

people see her family every day;

they live in the meadow, tucked amongst the cornflowers. somebody 

has been teaching them how to use a knife.

her cage is rusted shut. there isn't a lock. her soft brown wings

are bloody but she beats and beats and beats them trying to get

out. if hope isn't here, what is?

they've taken her -

hope - yet she chirps in our ears every morning because

the sun still rises over the dew and there is always more.

she's the thing with feathers

that perches in a cage

and sings the song of protest with every word she has

and never stops at all

There's a grapefruit Spindrift on the kitchen island where I’m sitting. The digital clock at the top of my Mac Book Air screen reads 9:16 p.m. The battery is 100% full, and so am I, ready to pour out my weekend's musings onto this empty notes entry. I don’t need a reason to write. I will always find myself putting words to paper eventually, whether it’s on my ancient laptop, my even ancienter Olivetti typewriter, or just a notepad with a gel pen. There’s always something appealing about it. In my opinion, writing is an art. It takes dignity and soul, let alone presence of mind to reduce a working, growing mind to a few paragraphs. But I feel like it’s what I’m here for.

I first started writing when I was maybe seven years old. I was writing in school before that, but during the chaos of the pandemic, and living in NYC at the time, I found an escape in words and letters. We moved to Vermont, my parents divorced, and I started at a new school. Every day my mind was turning at such a high speed I couldn’t keep up with my last thought. I found writing as a way to share my thoughts, get my gears spinning, and do something good in the midst of a turbulent world. Years later, I found YWP. A community. A safe space. Somewhere that wasn’t school that I could learn something about the world, about what I could do about it. Since then, I’ve found joy and growth in a community.

So here I am, typing away on a clickety-clackity Mac Book keyboard that’s just as old as I am. Here I am, sipping from a grapefruit Spindrift and pondering my life, everyone's lives, and life as a concept. I know I’ll never be able to put everything I feel and think to words. Some emotions are just too great to comprehend. Others are so simple that there are too many ways to say the same thing. But I have found belonging in a world that remains lost in a swirling snow globe of fate. I want everyone to know that they too can share. That they too can create. That their view of the world is their creation, almost entirely. But for now, I’ll just say goodnight. It’s 9:35, and tomorrow there’s gonna be more things to write about.