I fell asleep counting silhouettes

Shadows from parents chest

Watched them expand and contract

Counted to three of those same breaths

That used suicide as threat

Said they loved me back

A childhood full of regrets

I tried I couldn't forget but the

Callouses from malice and carelessness kept me numb

Corralled and canvassed counterfeit confidence on my tongue

The forging up of my thumbs. I’m reaching now for the sun

I am the son

Or accident carefully planned, born in a faraway land

Learning to fight where I stand…

So the warmest welcome and salutations from

Building codes and regulations

The rose that growed from concrete pavements

I need some space for contemplation

But who can dream here in this nation?

Who can dream here in this nation?

[Fauxe]

Oooh, I’ll give a little something back

So I can get to know what it’s like to be

Know that one day I’ll find it

And I’ll be right here you can see

Right back to me

So I can greet you with that same smile

Maybe home is a poem about cheap colognes

And dreams postponed for reasons unknown and

Vacations were the trips we’d take in fits of rage

I flipped the page, from unwelcome knocks

Broken clocks, fake Birkenstocks

Moving boxes, stray thoughts

Saying kinfolk, we been broke

Corbusian misanthrope, I’m losing this thing called hope

I’m usually good at coping… but

Blood is thicker than water. Only in certain cases

Family’s loyalty till lawyers fees and court cases

Really someone wins when the Family Feuds

They check on you when the cheque is due

The meanings that we all imbue

Time travelling, now my mind is unravelling

To realise we all miss moments of missing moments of missing

Listen, I put sutures ‘tween my future and my past now I’m

Sticking to the task to put my pain in paragraphs

[Fauxe]

One life comes too fast and I want

Love, love…

And then I remind myself

This light is more than mine

Internalised my inheritance as I read the loan shark calligraphy

Things I’ll release in therapy, I’m taking my own liberty

To dedicate this song to the varicose veins on my mother's feet

To the roots she sowed as she put my sisters hair in pleats

Or plates of paneer and the lessons we both felt in belt

Especially to the ankle monitor that kept my father from leaving

To Brands it is the elixir of all-knowing

To our mutuality of being, through the paradox of seeing, and ever constant fleeing

Dying to make a living

We are ten year loaners of overpriced Toyotas

The broken homeowners, my brown skin filling quotas

I am not a statistic. I’m a dreamer, I’m a misfit, I’m a mystic, vicarious or voyeuristic, They couldn't understand

In 1999, I tried jumping into my grandfather’s grave. I was seven

In 2008, I realized I would always have to punch above my weight class

In 2017, my mother asked me on the morning of my graduation what my what my major was

So I declare I don’t have homes I have addresses

So these days I’m just tryna find a home in this body

And I’ll spend the rest of my days

Juggling the juxtapositions

Forever wondering if I am taking up too much space

And leave with more questions than answers

A chronic overthinker with a woeful inability to cherish