Aarushi Prasad, Anabranch (after Lyn Hejinian

Anabranch (after Lyn Hejinian)

Aarushi Prasad

The darker the henna, the stronger the bond with your future husband they said, so I vigorously rubbed my palms with diluted lemon juice and cinnamon. The neighbour's younger one had to share her Barbies and she wasn’t pleased about it. As soon as my kite was cut, I sprinted across roofs, across baskets of dried chilis and mangled wires to collect it. While the watermelon had white and black seeds, the guava had pink ones. My oesophagus flooded with the fermented alcohol disguised as hydrochloric acid. The incessant stream of traffic on the road bridges the gap between the bourgeois and the bourgeoisie. We The People. She shook her umbrella and droplets of water fell on the floor. I was forbidden from going to the sea when the tide was high even though the aroma of spices and clarified butter whirled throughout the apartment. Where do dreams birth themselves? We did not have a maid’s quarter so her groans became a lullaby. “Think outside my box” rallied swaths of people, as a blindfolded woman with a scale in her hand stared intently at them. Don’t let history retweet itself. The french fries and chicken tenders became soggy in the trunk of the car. Sylvia shuts her eyes and all the world drops dead. The sumac stuck stubbornly in the crevice between my canines. Give this notebook to my mother when you go to my native land for your honeymoon. It was so romantic that I was frightened to press fast forward. Who are we if not the stories we tell ourselves.

The washing machine whirred and she sat above it reading Little House on the Prairie. The zebra crossing hypnotised her so she stood still and aimless. Celery stems made the broth bitter and Papa twitched as he took the first sip, followed by the second. Although she was beautiful, she

was married to someone else. Papercuts ran so deep that the yellow pus soiled the gauze bandage. There were three sofas aligned in a column, however the fourth one was out of line. After ravaging the jamuns we stole from the meadows, we carefully preserved the seeds as souvenirs from our adventures. The probability of throwing two sixes on a dice is one-twelfth but it happens quite often. The glass was neither half full, nor half empty. For there are some who grasp tightly onto a rung of the ladder but have their toes twisted towards gravity. Stick one palm to the other and cross your thumbs to pray. The paper clip transformed into a mangled piece of metal and the burglar used it to open the lock that bolted the gate. Mirrors shattered and the glue was feeble. Peeling the onion reminded me of how my therapist peeled my skin, the flesh followed next and finally the garb that draped my conscience. I wanted a hug so I combed the street, privately, insanely and without recourse. The mason arranged the bricks one above the other and cemented them with sweat so that the earthquake would not destroy the sacred abode. I stood and stared at the dirt accumulated in the buttons of the coffee machine and burnt my tongue. The light on the night that I passed by her window flickered like her smile. Press your thighs against one another.

The dough was watery, so the oil explosively vaporised in all directions. Cameras flashed during the burial, slashing hymns of a dignified death. A caged parrot emulates my benevolent kindness towards the orphans but not my cruelty. Cleopatra’s hourglass illustration made the teacher anorexic. Disillusioned by the homogeneity of her cult, she thought he was an extra-terrestrial object that walked, that smiled. One coconut had water, the other one greasy flesh. A rodent went through one ear canal and discovered its way out through the other and it was a periodical occurrence. Wooden shrapnel derailed the train of thought. Corpses

shrouded in bureaucratic failure obscenely decorated a once secularly flagrant Delhi. The potency of a knight to prance across the chess board challenged my mobility. A brunette’s comb had strands of blonde hair. The avant-garde graffiti vandalised the generational abode. Knees were apparently suggestive even though the voice reiterated a firm negative. United Nothing (UN). Her luscious locks swept the morsels of food on the floor. Genetic inheritance does not alter when alteration finds. He committed a burglary to escape the New York snow and nursed his cold under a penitentiary roof. The cerebrum was a sieve for intrusiveness but the incense burns never went through the minute holes. I was lost like a slave that no man could free.

The magnitude of melanin in my skin masked my humanness before the jury. A single star in a sky of violent constellations. Moans escaped the mansions of her vocal chords only to be deflected back from the blackboards of societal pedagogy. The beetroot coleslaw stained my fingertips as it amalgamated with the blood from my grated skin. His sister-in-law tied a knot and suffering became her currency. The jasmine cologne brought back memories of brand new white erasers that I sniffed during carpentry class. My clasp around his waist tightened as we raced the blaring Police sirens that haunted our arteries. Chapped, unpigmented lips yearning for matrimonial moistness. Cilantro and coriander can be easily confused with each other, is it fair to be punished for it? Passports forbidding the privilege of being blinded by skyscrapers. Her piggy bank flooded with tears. On Halloween, he treated children with virile venom instead of candy. She had promised her ailing father that she would be good and goodness made all the difference. The taste of water became subtly sweet as she hopped onto an aeroplane. The bread and butter of a historian are their sources. I heard frantic knocks on the door but

there was only a prejudiced shadow. Tabooed concoctions of rum and coke choked the maid’s son and he screamed and wept but to no avail. And we drank our tea and pretended not to look at each other, until we squeezed a peek. The rules are simple: there are none, unless you have someone you'd rather take?

During La Tomatina, a potato dislocated my jaw and I looked around for a demon but to no avail. Thirteen stripes and fifty stars strapped me to my bed with electrodes in my brain. The nephew hid under the car during a game of hide-and-seek but was never found. After fifteen-years of waitressing, she encountered someone who knew how to use chopsticks well. Termites gnawed on the stacks of papers that lay abandoned in the basement. The ruminations of a dangerous mind. I hate goodbyes so I saved a few flies and kept them in a jar. Set your worries on fire and let your heart lurch and slide. I told the crow my treasure of secrets but he was loyal to Mama who gave him a morsel daily. The ashes of cigarettes pile up in silence, testament to compressed memories and torment. The polaroids never saturated and the evening became one of “what-ifs.” Mother bought onions, capsicums and sweet potatoes but forgot the rice. I hope you fall in love and I hope it breaks it your heart. The mechanic removed the support wheels off my bicycle as tears and mucus became one. The pink elephant in the room painted the walls rainbow with its trunk. A stranger treated me with tea and cookies in Sarajevo and I ate them, even though I was told strangers are bad bad people. Honey was mixed in the powdered medicine to make it sweet. Little Mrs. Sunshine and her family on the verge of a breakdown. For the living and the dead we must bear witness.