India

Five poems and a short epilogue

Preamble

Two days after my 31st birthday, I sat at a bar in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, staring at out at the lethargic planes, waiting to board the first of two flights to Chennai, India. I was heading there for work.

I lived there for three months, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Like all of life’s most consequential periods, it was both bracing and restorative.

When I came home, I spent some time digesting the whole massive experience, and then sporadically wrote short poems about some of my time there. I was rereading these lately, and was struck (though in no way surprised) by the solipsism. When writing and trying to figure things out, I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. However, it is also instructive on where my mind often goes when presented with life up close: I locate my pain and longing, and I bring it to the forefront as if it is the authentic experience I should be having.

There is so much more to be said about that experience: what it taught me about kindness; the goodness of the people I met; how to barter with a Tuk Tuk driver; and my wonderful friends. I could write a whole essay about the regenerative power of sitting with Adum in a dimly lit bar, talking about books over many Kingfishers.

But today I wanted to share these five poems. They focus on my longing, and the rampant and gluttonous anxiety that almost consumed me whole. I have also included a short epilogue that showed what my life was like on my return to the US.

Five Poems 

India (i)

I lived in India for three months and 
Felt little need to write while I was
There. But I am asked about it often
And I can say little except that it was:

Life affirming

And challenging
Like being dropped into a rapid
Hardenin’ Mold of discomfort,
Full of joy and a life
With eyes open
A life in which silence receded
And my idea of home and 
Family and love were defined by
The lack of each. 

India (ii)

My mouth must have been wide open, to smell those smells and see those sights,
Even in that middle night darkness:
Trash, strangers,
Small groups cluttered on what passed for street corners,
One man passing honeysuckle back to another, and back again. 

I was frightened and in awe and all of my
Western life was trailing behind like one strap
Dangling, flapping, crackling in the hazy night mist.

I began to see the city as it crumbled and collected and
Piled upon itself, speeding past me
And revealing only what the main street put forth
For me.

I was in India,
Suddenly alive again for the first time in months,
Forgetting meadows and goodbyes and long,
Open spaces, embracing the openness this
Clutter must surely bring.

India (iii)

I put my head underwater and
My hair is like bleeding ink spreading
Out around
My swirling head;
The Blue and orange lights,
The stillness of my puffed cheeks.
A plane flies and
Lands on my back crashing into
My head.

I can hear nothing.
I feel my chest.
It does not contract. 
I feel my own emancipation
From thought and pull
My legs to my chest,
Fetal and somehow running.

I do not think of you here,
But only my senses and what touches me,
What I see, my eyelashes, my lips,
My mistaken hope that when
I come up for air, I’ll know
That you love me and that I 
Have a home to return to. 

India (iv)

Wrapped up in a sheet, 
Looking at the eighth floor window
Saying out loud,
I wonder if that’s locked.

I pull the sheet up,
I remember my pacing,
The outright horror of
The aloneness;
I’ve walked those paths
Before, but in my own home.
Now a phone call can’t save me.
I rely on my family
But I have spurned my family
Until they are too far to touch. 

She is gone — that’s the reality:
She is in someone else’s arms
She is waltzing just out of my eyesight
She is this deep breath I can’t take
She reaches out to me to save her, but I
Do not dare reach out to her to save me. 

I’m sweating into the bed and I shut 
My eyes and feel the heat unwrap on
My tongue. How can I swallow this
Heat.

I look the window again and
Will my family to wake up.

I could explode.
I could explode.
I will explode.

India (v)

We got out of the tub tuk and walked through
The awning and up the sidewalk — 
Ferns echoed foot steps. 
I felt so lonely and had no appetite.
I thought of you; I saw you hiding in the
Greenery. I wanted you to be hiding there,
Waiting for me to find you and take your hand
And walk you through this heat.

I was not hungry, but I ordered the chicken. 
I listened to a woman complain about the service.
I stared in the distance and looked for you.
I didn’t realize it then, but I was letting you
Define my experience there.

I’ve always been hyper aware that the
Green of the world should
Move something in me, should
Turn smells into experiences or more precisely:
Frame me in the moment. 

The dirt and grime and noise of India
Made this green pop out as I’ve always
Needed it to do, and yet, I still
Looked past that green to find you. 

Epilogue

Fall 2013

When I am sad
I like to read David Foster Wallace
Or pretend that you are happier without me
Or microwave a hot dog to the point of bursting
And jam it in a bun with cheese and ketchup 
And mustard
And shove it in my face, thinking of the billboard
That told me this type of behavior will give me
Butt cancer.