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I am one of those who keeps a note about everything.
Who didn’t wish me on my birthday.
What the zodiac sign of the person,
I am casually sleeping with, is.
As if casually is a non threatening, non corrosive,
non intimate contour of being with someone.
The number of times a lube can be amazoned home
before someone calls me a whore. The number of whores
I am in solidarity with. The number of places
a piercing would look nice—nine.
Eyebrows, nose, ears, tongue, lips, nipples, belly, glans, labia.
The number of tattoo ideas for the small valley
of the furrowed back. So that I can tell someone
‘only you have seen it fully,’ because I don’t like
saying I love you. I should say it. Often.
Especially to friends who returned texts on time.
Made plans to meet. Cancelled and made plans again.
The number of friends who use the word subreddit,
while investigating the primacy of a disease
riddling inside the body after making love.
Of nudes where the back makes a C,
so that all brown things can point upwards.
Of people who died this year. Of blocks. Of touch me nots.
Of unfollows just to stalk them back incognito.
The number of movies pirated on the internet.
And playlists made from new music in foreign languages.
Kazak indie, Aussie indie, Arabic pop, Afrobeats, Chutney,
more Sufi, more Lata Mangeshkar, more Sunidhi,
more Ramba Ho Samba Ho. And still more music to find.
I wish there was a way to talk about a year.
To form it in clay. Fire and glaze it.
Mayookh Barua is a Los Angeles-based writer from Northeast India, pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California and has an MFA from NCSU. His work explores sexuality, art, mythology, education, and family through a queer South Asian lens. He is a recipient of the Anthony Veasna So Fiction Award, the USC Del Amo Foundation Research Award, and MOZAIK Philanthropy’s Future Art Writers Award. He has been recognized as a semi-finalist for the Black Lawrence Fellowship and a finalist for the Dorianne Laux Poetry Prize. His work has been supported by Lambda Literary, Roots.Wounds.Words and Prospect Art. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Adroit Journal, SUSPECT, The Audacity, and other publications.
This is like living another’s memory as one’s own
This is an awesome poem, great job! I could hear the tone like I was watching a movie. Very nonconformist, showing off their greatness...