There is a monster thrashing in my belly
Original poetry collection by Simran Singh Jain
There is a monster thrashing in my belly
and stolen soil pushed under my fingernails
ancestors running between my earlobes
God crouching behind my eyelids.
I touch this poem and feel it pulsate
I put words on a page and let them breathe
without me. Let them scream
without me.
America’s roars burn pits in my stomach,
I cannot sleep with all this noise.
Police killings and
deportations and
shooting guns are too loud
to be drowned out by poetry
and we cannot sleep with all this noise.
My mother has not slept since 9/11.
My brother has not slept since Sandy Hook.
My sister has not slept since election day.
I have not slept.
Somewhere between
poetry and freedom
you can almost hear us
whispering,
America
you were supposed to be gentler with us than this.
A Support Group for White Men Who Just Can’t Get Enough of Brown Pussy
“Hi, my name’s [insert name here] and I just love exotic things.
The colorful birds, the hot places,
the beautiful women.”
He says he doesn't mind her crooked nose and kinda likes the way her leg hair grows back overnight. He wishes she'd call her mother less. He says the way she speaks is funny, he wishes she’d do it less too but only admits that here. He likes the way her words taste, he likes the way her lips taste, he doesn’t like the way her cooking tastes.
*Collectively*
“Hi, [insert name here].”
“Hi, my name’s [insert name here] and I’ve always had a sweet tooth.
Sometimes Hershey’s just isn’t enough.”
He says he would never bring her home to his mother. He’s never met hers. His roommates can’t remember her name no matter how many times she comes by. He thinks she’s embarrassed of him when she’s with her friends. He’s not embarrassed of her, he just doesn’t think she’d like his friends. He voted for Obama. He voted for Bernie. He doesn't like to talk about anything past that.
*Collectively*
“Hi, [insert name here].”
“Hi, my name’s [insert name here] and I can’t get enough of spicy women.
The hotter the better.”
He says she’s different than the girls he’s been with before, not better, just different. He doesn’t like politics or spending the night. He says he likes the way her skin melts off her body and into his hands, the pigment coating his palms, building up under his nails. He likes to use it to finger paint his name across her bedroom walls before he leaves.
“Hi, my name’s [insert name here] and I hate coming to this group,
it makes me feel unoriginal.”
I collect stories to share with my daughters while praying for sons
The women in my family tell stories without knowing who’s listening. We dance without music, sing songs about the ancestors we have and the ancestors we’ll be. Sometimes, when the wind takes a night off and the air is heavy and still, we tell stories of the men.
He told her that he was leaving
while his tongue was still pressed
against the roof of her mouth.
She contemplated biting it off,
but was afraid of the sting of
hot Punjabi blood
she never quite got used to.
Instead, she waited for him
to remove his mouth from hers.
He repeated himself,
I’m leaving.
She bit off her own tongue
before he could finish his sentence.
The morning breeze starts its shift at daybreak, there is no more talk of the men. We spend our days wondering if our tongues sting, or if they’re even there at all. On cold, gusty nights, she visits us in our dreams, and we greet her with the lullabies she once sang.
Simran Singh Jain is a queer South Asian activist and poet currently living in Syracuse, New York. She has been in the fields of Reproductive Justice and anti-racist activism for several years, including currently working in anti-incarceration. She is an emerging poet and has been published by the Academy of American Poets' and the Pennsylvania Bards Southeast Poetry Review. She is also the editor of a book of poetry translations, originally written by her Dadiji (grandmother), Sunita Jain.