Nico Sharma
Blasphemy/Silent night
I find symbolism and metaphors
In simple things, like pawn shops
In the middle of Bethlehem,
Brokering logic for dreams
Is it not superstition in its own right?
Pathologize each word into existence
Or rather into fiction within my mind,
Promiscuous with my faith
Infidelity in the form of
Religious imagery
Of art nouveau crosses
Stolen from cobweb corner shops,
And midnight rituals of
Stuffing my pillowcase with torn
Blood-soaked sleeves.
It's a recurring nightmare
And it's oh-so intimate
I court men in those dreams
A word that dangles loosely
From my own neck,
Like dotted lines
Along the edge of a serrated blade,
When I wake up
I don't want to forget your ribs
On mine, and how you begged
To be my girl in bed,
I still want to be slick lips pursed
Around the arteries on your neck.
|Recoil at the touch
Of everyone I've ever met
Yet I could trace hymns on end with
Nimble words against the curve
Of your back,
The worst part through it all
Being how you loved my skin,
More than anyone has or could
The horizon of my waist
Alongside black lace, and
Crescent moons on my nape
Weren't mine to begin with,
Your humming voice
Taking possession of my name,
One that stirred disapproval
From my mother.
Whisper affections softly into
Strands of my hair
Marking it down as yours as well
I can't feel my own hands,
Those who desperately search for
My bones under sedimentary
Layers of dead-weight skin
Feel my heart scattering
Into your hair
Tell me, am I glowing?
Am I the warm sunshine
On your fingertips?
Touch me and remind me I'm real,
Touch me so I can stop
Caving into myself
Take away this curse I carry in my
Veins, sicker every day
With self-humiliation
Knowing catharsis fights
Against borrowed time
Uptight, like circling beads of prayer
That keep the rest of the world going,
I bring home traces of you each morning-
Stolen valours in museum cases
Pocketing moments etched within
Tragic eyes that swim in goodbyes,
Bury me in empty caves
So I can dream of you again someday.
What good is a cathedral
Without its arches;
No flair for theatrics?
What good is a clean slate?
If I'm nothing, if not lonely without the
Hand under my shirt,
Leaning against laundry rooms
In rundown motels
Archaia: lessons in gender
She taught you the backward stitch
That she learnt from her mother
Lifting weighted scissors that would
Blister her weathered hands
Measuring each square by the centimetre,
She yells your name when you prick yourself
"Make sure it never happens again."
And you repeat after her words
Sucking a finger between your teeth.
You'll need spools of thread
You find them at funerals
Strung through sparse words
There are no eulogies when a man dies
Only his sisters asking to be shot,
You laugh because you're seven
Through uncomfortable silence
Wishing your mother had taught you to grieve instead
Patchworks of fabric next,
You must collect them with precision
Good, you still remember this one-
A vintage piece, claimed by a man more than twice your age
Nervous abrasions the size of two grown hands on your chest
A shame you only wore it once,
Faded squares lined with care
You see the floral pillowcase on which
You asked your mother about Mellisa
"It happens when they're men"
And then you fall asleep.
Last comes the final stitch,
And begins your appraisal
Your mother doesn't shy away from telling you
How you deprive her of a proper daughter,
A religious father points at your palms
With critique
Frayed lines, unsatisfactory use of red thread
Worry is only good for amateur results
Steady your fingers and try for once.
A handmade quilt only waxes as you age
And despite your grievances
You'll find it on your concave body
Resting in place of the weight that fell away,
It'll always be the same setup
For the same punchline:
A rotten girl, grown up to be a half-boy
Too afraid to fall asleep cold
Queer literature and other hypotheticals
I don't feel the suffering
That women are born with
I don't climb trees as men do
Toeing the line between life and alive,
Turn you like the edge of a star
In my hand. In between fingertips
That burn,
Waiting to see a glimpse of my reflection
I don't expect to be wanted,
Only yearn for it.
Aversions to sanitized labels and inclusivity
Give me animalistic urges, raw
Under bared teeth
Peeling off the exoskeleton
In hopes of being clean.
It's all collateral in a real pursuit
Of being looked at with meaning
My mother's daughter, father's pride.
My hands, my eyes, my face.
It's all borrowed.
The way I stare blankly at my walls
For hours
The way I break every porcelain
Plate I've owned.
I cannot deserve good things,
It isn't something I've been brought up
To believe in.
The crease in my brow belongs to him
Like a paper folds on an origami swan
If "the world is cruel"
What wrong is it
To learn that by heart?
I dreamt I was hers,
I wish I could've been his.
My consciousness always
Acknowledged as property of another,
Would I be a lover or a boyfriend?
Tired legs, tired thoughts, tired eyes
Let's change the setting and characters for once!
Should I fix you with vanity and pride,
Then I raise you to be a better girl?
Could you even do that right?
Parallel scars under black shirts
Above busted knees
You have a new name now,
And thighs that seep into bedsheets
Begging to be fed
Mapping the trenches in
Every inch of olive skin
Like braille, memorizing how it feels
To touch, how it might feel
To someone else.
You're supposed to feel like this,
The lights stay dim when
Boiling water
Melts the unattended mirror
Cut your hair and scrape the skin
Off your sides, exorcising every lump
Set mistakenly into my frame.
Since when did wanting to be happy
Become a punishment to
My body; yet how do I matter
If I can't suffer for what I want?
Resigned acceptance because
I need to be good for other people
Perfect in fact.
Maybe I wish I had a bittersweet longing
For boyhood days of purple tulle skirts,
But I don't wish to make history
Nor be a part of it.
Nico Sharma (he/they) makes his debut in the online poetry scene, finally reconciling with the fact that he might actually be real. Stuck in the perpetual flux of body, identity and being, he often contemplates his taste in chosen names and how poorly they pair with the latter half of his ID. He also maintains a diary of severely unpolished projects at linktr.ee/modernconcussion.
