I steal away from the summer, my time spent in the closet,
Absent from the eternal Indian heat,
Dressing up in the vibrant pinks and yellows of my mother’s youth,
Time left lapsing over her old lehengas.
Skin itchy from the netting inside the strict fabric:
It will not stretch to fit over the soft of your body.
Long outgrown my choice, the fabric no longer drapes loose,
Instead the thick of my skin cramps in the outline of my identity.
It’s meant to be spacious enough to sweat in:
To pant, to heave, to run in.
Upper arms wrapped tight in corset of curiosity, but I want it tighter,
For it to suffocate not just me, but all the curves accentuated in western TV.
It takes both my aunts to peel the top up and over my shoulders,
Our own sisterhood in suffering.
These clothes don’t belong to me.
Mehndi drips from my fingertips down to the bend of my elbow,
Wrapping around me until my skin becomes the same red brown shade as my nani’s morning cha.
Hair warped by borrowed oil, it trickles down my spine:
It will not soothe the brittle bends of your body.
Parting back my braid, I weave through the same paranda patterns as my Punjabi sisters,
The motion older than any border drawn.
Playing dress-up in a golden graveyard of assimilation:
Always torn between who I was born to be and who I’ve become.
I don’t belong to these clothes.
The chun chun of churiyan echo their way into my mind,
My pakhi swinging in symmetry with my dadhi’s old giddha routine,
My eyes reflect her kajal silhouette:
Our movements match one another and we become one.
I belong beyond these clothes.
