A Brief History of My Name

s like the sharp edge of a knife

                    h like the hand that holds it

                                        y for all the years the blade sharpened
​
                                                             a for the tooth that now resembles an axe
​
                                                                                m for this mouth of mine that feels jagged

Between Breaths

There’s no tongue that betrays my name like my own, its sound cursed by the lips that taint it before anyone else can. Clenched between my teeth is the poetics of Gujarati that rots in English and all I can do is hold the syllable against the roof of my mouth. Uneasily, one letter spills out after another until there is no spit left, like blood that runs empty when a vein is drained, and instead, I croak out an unpleasant sound against the dryness of my throat, letting out a massacre in a war that I continue to wage.

How Dangerous Names Unfold

My Name is Haunting Me​​

My name is always held 
by the thread of an apology:

sorry.

Then, it rusts against the side of a 
blade, where it meets the end and 

splinters. 

I want to scream against the sharpness,
but all that comes out is a worn out 

sigh. 

It is as if my name is a burden to be
given breath such that it is blunted instead in 

silence. 

There, in the stillness, my throat chokes
and I strangle out my name:

shyam.

My body shivers at the sound of 
its own name. Shrinks

into its brown-skinned flesh
at the faintest breath: a whisper.

The graze of a syllable that lodges
a bullet inside my windpipe. Presses

A barrel against my throat,
holding me hostage: a captive.

My tongue pulls the trigger and 
slowly each organ collapses. Leaves

only a trace of a pulse, 
as my lungs withdraw: a stillness. 
​
There, in the marrow of my bones,
is the soil of my ancestors. Screams
​
to me, “say it again and again,”
as my body craves the terror: my name.

My Name is a Poem

Reincarnation

​It swims…

in a dialect of Gujarati
that reaps an entire season,

dancing in the monsoon 
somewhere under a banyan tree

where raindrops slip between
leaves in a tender caress,

and where the sound of thunder
resonates like the wind on a quiet day.

Between its quiet moans 
and heavy whispers,

I can hear the flood of
each letter to make
​
…a poem.

I once lost my name 
in a pyre, in a flame 
​meant to burn a body.

Set on fire, before me,
alive and breathing,
I could hear it wailing.

In the aftermath,
I listened to the echoes
of its ashes in mourning.
​
After thirteen days,
I adorned it with a garland
of flowers, and watched it blossom.