my friend is dying of an invisible darkness
it’s either depression or loneliness or plain facts:
a) Her cancer-smitten grandpa wants her to marry
b) We think she’s queer, but she can’t be sure
c) She has only two reasons to live and one of them
happens to be me. Back home everything is getting
smaller, and another friend’s uncle has died of covid.
Last year I swore it was too early to write about this
tragedy, but now it seems like my saying will not change
the plain facts: a) I had no desire to continue living then
b) I have no desire to continue living now. Back home,
the news channels inform me of the mutant virus that grows
in my people. This time, it isn’t the fascism that the ruling
party has stitched into our hearts, but a strain so deadly
that it decays everyone it touches, yet it’s the plain facts:
a) There are no hospital beds b) There is no oxygen
c) They need blood plasma of all types d) Elections are due.
Back home, my people can’t breathe and in my make-shift
American home, a mass shooting kills more people like us
every day. I keep asking why people are dying, the plain fact is:
because of other people.
Added: Wednesday, December 18, 2024 / Used with permission.
Photo by Liang Siheng.
Gauri Awasthi, born and raised in Kanpur, India, received her MFA in creative writing from McNeese State University. She has won fellowships from Yaddo, Hambidge Center, Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sundress Academy for The Arts, and others. Her writing has been published in Best New Poets 2023, Quarterly West, Notre Dame Review, The Rumpus, Buzzfeed, and others. She is an Associate Editor at The Offing and teaches Creative Writing.
Image Description: Gauri Awasthi stands amidst a snowy background with barren trees and looks into the camera, smiling. She wears a brown winter coat with a checkered baby pink and white woolen scarf.
