By Pooja Rana
I didn't eat 12 grapes under the table at midnight on New Year's,
I slapped on mouth tape, hoping to stop my apneatic snore, and for the curses I mistakenly utter.
That night, I dreamed about peeling off dry lizard carcasses stuck on my scoliotic back.
12 grapes cannot contain all the dreams I hold for you my Pooja,
But still, I try,
I whisper to the reflection in the mirror.
For I don’t dream with ache or fear,
I dream from love,
as someone who will peel your oranges for you.
May you dot the i’s, and then turn them into eyes,
carve pentagrams and modern hearts,
some big, some small, but each one holding love for all.
Deliberately poking the pen into the paper, darkening the stains,
metallic smell rising faintly.
Letting scribbling exorcise your anxiety for you.
May you forget the morbid origins of Ring-a-Ring-o’ roses,
visceral remains of plagues that plagued us.
Instead, may you laugh with the stubborn joy reserved for the blissfully ignorant,
Atishoo-ing your way through life.
May you forget it's called the Big Dipper,
but what your Nani taught you - three thieves plotting to steal the charpai.
You will soon realise that imagination makes for the joy which no one can steal from you.
And wonder makes for the best inheritance.
May your synapses finally prune, but your mind grows like Wisteria,
vines gently strangling the voices who called you Jassi.
so they cannot find another.
Another someone, still slathering the seven-step routine for their imagined inadequacies.
Wait, let me get you the hammer,
to break the concrete cast,
that puberty poured on your insecurities.
Turning them stone,
rage, strike,
but remember to only chisel that last bit,
so you may still recognize you.
And when the moonlight begins to pool in your scalp tonight,
dream about the orchard I want you to devour and not just 12 grapes,
Your matted bed-hair now lies washed and free,
on the black satin pillowcase.
Breathing freedom, the the tape lies purposely forgotten,
perhaps you are born to scream, not to be silenced.
I hope then, all the dreams you have for you, come true.
And you realise, those lizards no longer cling to you,
they quietly slip in the bed, just content to be beside you.