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My Poetry
Although I only started writing in 2019 after being inspired by my living-learning community Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts, I have grown immensely as a poet in this past year.
Fun fact: in Sanskrit, the name Rachna means to create, form, make, write or compose and in an interesting turn of events, I have become a creative enthusiast myself!
Click on different Titles below to peruse some of my best work!
self-portrait as the women who precede me
February, 2020
on my right hand, I wear my mother.
I listen for the ticks in her old college watch,
the seconds telling me catch your bus before it leaves, and
I think of all she has given me.
her time me, life lessons on independence.
I taste my mother in my tears
as we sniffle and turn to stare at each other’s wet, salty faces
in the middle of this dark and cold, popcorn-sweat theatre
in the middle of this story about a crazy man
in the middle of this tight sailor’s knot of our lives.
I am my mother, and I am my mother’s mother
when I stand, glistening, over the stove
stirring spices and
a little extra sugar never hurt anybody, right?
we leave the last piece untouched.
I hear my mother in my silence
as we swallow our desires, lumps of
soggy-dry cardboard, halfway lodged
in our throats like forgotten promises.
the difference lies in my cowardice.
yet
I am my mother in my rage.
her won’t-take-no-for-an-answer
her this-is-not-what-I-want-this-is-what-I-want-for-you.
maybe someday I will act when I know what motherhood feels like.
in my deep brown eyes, I wear my mother.
she is in the lumps on my body,
that one left incisor that just slightly yellower than the rest,
the dark hair on my upper lip that I pluck off my face.
maybe I should keep them.
maybe I should wear my mother on my face with pride.
Rocket Scientist
- After ‘A Thousand Years of Good Prayers’ by Yiyun Li
March, 2020
My daddy is a rocket scientist -
you must have heard of him! He engineers
space-ships with his giant, calloused fist.
Aliens arrive, daddy disappears.
My daddy is a construction worker,
some architecture of some architect.
See that brick-red-roof house? Dearest father
holds it up strongly, so tall and erect.
My daddy is a zookeeper, desert
adventurer. Once he came home after
an expedition, said his left foot hurt -
there’s scorpion poison in the plaster.
Magician daddy, hops into his hat:
girl marvels at his disappearing act.
grocery shopping for independence
October, 2019
we went grocery shopping for independence
on a rainy sunday morning.
you were driving
and crying,
driving
and crying.
I always loved it when you drove,
you seemed so strong behind the steering wheel.
I would play make-believe, pretending
you knew exactly where you were taking us,
and I was safe.
but then you told me you didn’t know how to do this alone
as we turned a corner into the parking lot.
I’m right here, I said,
I can carry all the bags in,
but we both knew I couldn’t be what you wanted.
and so we scoured the aisles
scanning barcodes on tin-can labels for
bravery
breaking open the peppers to search for
freedom.
we went grocery shopping for independence
on a rainy sunday morning
and as I sat
still
in the passenger seat,
I vowed to steal it for you.
Home for the Holidays
September, 2020
when I came home from college for the first time,
I found my mother had adopted a bear.
mother, there’s a bear in my bed I exclaim
but she simply enters, smiles softly and spoon feeds the bear some porridge.
the thing is, this giant sleeping bear looks an awful lot
like my favourite stuffed animal from the little metal
box my father gifted me when I was six.
the thing is, I think my shoulder has been
displaced ever since I locked the bear in his
little box and swallowed the key because I hated
the way it looked at me and
looked at me
with its little beady eyes but never opened its fucking mouth
to talk to me.
now, I don’t believe in God but I’ll still capitalise His name
and when the painting on the wall starts speaking to me
in a language I have never heard but understand perfectly,
I must concede
fall to my knees
and pray that my joints be put back into place because I just
want to feel
whole
again.
so I’ll drop my suitcases and lay down
next to the grizzly bear in my bed,
arm around his furry, purring chest.
I do not know him but it feels
just right.
hostages
September, 2020
hey are you up? i can’t sleep tonight because there’s a rat gnawing on the lining of my stomach and it’s
keeping me awake but anyway i thought it would be nice to hear your voice
but i could just leave you this message if you’re busy and you can call me back when you get this
and anyway i should try going to sleep because there’s a cockroach swimming in my
underwear now and i think it’s coming from inside of me but i can’t be certain oh look here come a few
more, these angsty little things so anyway would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime?
i mean with me, well i hate coffee but i’d love to hear your views on coffee over some glasses of water in
a coffee shop but anyway i’m sorry if i’m talking too much it seems there are a
few bees stinging the inside of my throat but it’s alright they mean well i’m just trying to get them out
to set them free they don’t belong here anyway have you ever wondered why love has
to feel like pests are slowly taking over each part of your body? it’s really okay if you don’t want to go
i’ve never been one for taking chances that leave me rocking back and forth in the fetal position on my
bathroom floor, knees over chest, snake coiled around neck, head in toilet--
anyway
The Secret to Beauty
October, 2020
I.
is chopping up your bones into finely diced slivers
and leaving them to simmer in a broth for
four to six hours, best results if left overnight,
and sipping on it every morning --
II.
-- every morning,
this is when you will always like the brown in your face best:
after you have washed it, twice, off the sins of last night.
III.
When you were born,
the sun grabbed you by your face
and kissed you on the lips. Senselessly.
My baby, you weren’t built to be
stuffed into soft pink leotards,
bending and stretching and contorting
like the ballerinas on T.V.
The truth is that
you got everything you needed
when she touched you for the first time
on that cold november night,
you have everything you need
in your own warm, kettle corn marrow.
IV.
So don’t forget to shut the curtains before you sleep because
when you have silver in your face,
you develop from the negatives differently, baby.
Gmaj7, colorized
October, 2020
Human beings get through life by memorising sounds without even realising it:
morning alarms footsteps bass notes to your favourite song
Here lies the twirling princess trinket box, celesta sings happy-birthday-to-you in Gmaj7
and there’s static in the baby monitor so nobody hears you slow dance around your crib
cradling the faded, carnation-shaped box in the upturned palms of your hands.
That’s the doorbell to your home. It’s confusing, I know, but maybe if we
cut out the bell shape from the cardboard cover of your favourite movie
and tape it onto the switch -- that should do the trick. Maybe it would ring more, then.
That, there, is your mother’s ringtone. Make sure you know that one,
it’ll be on the test, and pay special attention to the way
she closes her eyes and mutters a little prayer before answering every time it wails.
That’s the guitar -- those are the chords you think fit best together and
yes, that’s you! Look at your smile! Listen to the laughter and the cheers
and your father in a suit, all powdered up, fighting back tears.
Then there’s the sound of life escaping your grandmother’s throat like a heavy sigh
so we run to get her a glass of cold water, hold her frail body in your arms
laugh about how your sister weighs less than her.
Tell me the story, Ma.
I’ll pretend not to hear the ugly pieces that get stuck in your throat when your voice cracks.
Tell me the stories of when things were good and you were happy
and I’d get tucked in with stories of crane-extracted damsels and ogres.
There’s so much you don’t know
Your parents were your parents for longer than you remember
Did you know how much they mourned
blood-clot babies before you?
Did you know that you were a miracle
and how your father cried when you came out of your
mother with a halo around your head?
Did you listen to his heartbeat in your throat when he kissed you goodnight?
Could you hear his feet shuffle before he closed the door behind him?
In another life, I wish I knew less
October, 2020
I turned forty on my sixteenth birthday.
Mother places an oxygen tank near the candles,
there’s only three but if I blink enough times behind my
cylindrical-vision eyeglasses, I see six.
I was nine when I first found a grey hair sprouting out of my scalp,
timid and apologetic, crowning as a newborn head. I spent hours in front of the mirror
distinguishing shine from cortisol, separating care from time.
Mother tells me it will spread, but I pluck each one out anyway until I am new and clean and bald.
I snuck into my first R-rated movie when I was still in Mother’s womb
but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen a thousand times before.
I chase my days swimming in her unadulterated placenta and then
speak my first words: I was going to say something, but I forgot what it was.
The difference between the rising moon and the setting sun isn’t much;
it is the space between the floor and my legs,
hanging off a high oak chair (but sometimes it has wheels),
swinging to the whistling tune of my pulsating submarine stomach.
Sometimes they coexist, and sometimes they don’t.
One minute I need my appendix, and the next, I don’t.
Tongue-tied Ways to Die
June, 2020
i dreamt of potstickers last night but
instead of the pot it’s my oven and
instead of dumplings it’s my head and
suddenly the house is on fire and
congratulations, you’ve done it again!
i dreamt of a noose at the end of your body last night but
instead of the rope it’s my tongue and
instead of your neck it’s me, screaming and
i can’t help but freeze.
listen closely to the world trapped in snow-globe motion -
glass breaking and hearts beating and clocks ticking.
i dreamt of great heights last night but
instead of a ledge it’s my thirteenth-floor window and
this time it isn’t a dream.
this time it’s really you,
leaping out.
home #9
April, 2020
grandfather watches over us from the wall (oh, you would have loved him) / and I hope he can see spring
rearing its head outside. / uncle’s afternoon snores rise and fall with the ticking of the clock. / we are
on a conference call with time (speak up so it can hear you) and / I have not exhaled here in three days. /
the hairy rabbits wait patiently in the backyard / (they come out with the sun) squealing, / “this building
offers its value to everyone.” // but it was too cold for his widow here (maybe this is why her days are
numbered) - / the background-hold music and incessant typing and / I have realised that you are only
home when you know every inch of a kitchen (this is where we keep the sugar). / I hide a blank slate of
possibilities and lodge it in the milk-crate coffee table (do you like it? we polished it ourselves). / my hair is
falling out and I am afraid of dying. or worse, growing bald. / I unpack./
home #3.12
July, 2020
they say you are only home when you have seen your bedroom ceiling from every possible angle, / lying
awake in your twin bed, running from the snake-infested army nightmares that chase you behind your
eyelids, / so you let your head hang off the edge because the monsters pale in comparison. / the upside
down doll shape above the faded pink night light scares you, / but the dark scares you even more / so
you make friends with the middle-aged, spiky-haired troll and tell him your deepest secrets, and maybe
he’ll tell you his. / every night in bed, you act out the same three piano keys in the shape of the Earth
and you throw them into the air for the stars to catch / and then, when the song ends you’ll press your
ear to the cool italian marble flooring of your snoring house // to your mother stuck outside her little
cardboard box / lock. unlock. lock. / the cat soundlessly shrinks and slides under the crack in the door
/ padding her soft footsteps to your bed / dead. alive. dead. / and gently, she licks your face until you
fall asleep / so you sleep and you sleep and you never wake up. /
Ars Poetica
“I called it poetry, but it was flesh and time and bread and friends.”
- Eileen Myles, Notebook, 1981
March, 2020
I write to preserve myself.
Wrap my days in off-white linen and
bury them softly in the pyramid of my existence so that
when I am old and grey,
I can uncover these mummified feelings
and let them consume me,
suck me into myself like
whirlwinding quicksand.
We do not owe poetry to mere words,
nor to the books we have read. We owe
our poetry to the experiences we have that give us
something to say.