Kashiana Singh – 3 Poems
it
seeps active
lumbar fluids
into my days
colorless it
presents an
asymptomatic
condition
my amygdala my amygdala, is coquettish I play along with it an expert at theatrics it lives with an undiagnosed condition of continual poetic discharge my amygdala responds well to integrative treatment it seeps active lumbar fluids into my days colorless it presents an asymptomatic condition coming and going at will in moments most unexpected, never still, it is unpredictable in the egg I fry it imperfectly, and the yolk seeps into the white, a bleeding stream in my eyes, its kohl draining down my cheeks a permanent mark in my pores, as they hold goose bumps in some poems as they swim, swim, swim into, and out of the catheter as it hangs from a tiny hole in my brain my amygdala the doctor says needs a purge, an extract of its wasteland— of words, draining itself of the recurring spasms of nouns, verbs, clauses that clog its pathways and that I utter in stuttering accents which shift like quicksand in my glorious amygdala Thresholds are subjective I sit cross legged in perpetual convalescence knees to my chest, it helps contain my riots, rattling teeth, pain my parallel universes in seismic shakings not broken, nor consumed; yet one a fading world the other substantive — my body, unlike yours is a gutted home my etymology, unlike yours is an appendix my sleep, unlike your dreams is chronic my particles, unlike your cells are scattered my darkness, unlike your night is tectonic I creak, when I walk I electrocute, with my hurt I erase, each day after I certify myself for my pain threshold Submission Take me, write me, into a sky that swallows an empty tree, nests slumbering into branches, pining for cordial absences, leaves shedding an ample orange Feel me, write me, into strokes of an artist’s sketch edges crawling out, of frames into a palette of bleeding veins Sense me, write me, into a woman with flour covered hands, spilling herself into batter a masterpiece baked with immaculate sloppiness Hold me, write me, into flames of ambrosial passion consuming morrow, bones of bones borrowing fingerprints, fingers of fingers Sing me, write me, into atonement of an eager morning barefoot as it lights a crescendo of temple bells, the waning sky witness to defiant murmurations of a thousand birds
