IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER

Ever since Becca introduced me to Jenny Holzer’s aphorisms from “Survival” (1983-1985) I haven’t been able to stop going back to them for moments of fiery inspiration. In the heat of one of the most tender, jellyfish points of my life since I was a child: I crave focus. And only in the severe, black and fertile way. I want to feel my own stares and I want to use spit, carefully. I don’t lech at others, but there’s certainly this leopard instinct building inside of me. I shamelessly work on my Frida Kahlo gaze. I have this compelling desire to be striking, to sort of assault people with my presence.

I fear I am becoming several people who disagree with each other

I don't use blankets when I sleep

I eat food and pause to look upward, as if someone were there

I'm an imitation of Zora, Langston, Foucault on Power

I leave my hand on my breast

I wonder if I'd like to be choked

The day and night make no difference to me

I catch my heart reflected and it looks fresh and pulpy

I want to hold peoples arms and say that I like them and mean it

I watch my fingers drum on things

I brace my stomach like it needs protecting

I smoke, because I don't need to run

My skin is a loaded metaphor

and it makes me feel close to things

I think someone unknown is in the room with me and I close my eyes peacefully

I clench my thighs with magnetism

I go crazy for rock music

I think wearing khajol gives off my comfort with death

I agree with sewer smells

I know things will not stay the same

I am okay with this life

Catherine told me that a professor, er Jamaica Kincaid, once said to her something about how people know you’re a writer when you become involved with them, therefore they should expect betrayal. I’m not even going to pretend and disguise my egoism like that. So, this is me being dedicated to me, but at least an honest me. I left Hyderabad six days ago. I left with my hands in someone else’s hair. I left hands like a gardener’s and sounds I’d only ever heard my mother make when she expresses discomfort. I left the Mesozoic period that is HCU, dried up tamarind trees and once precarious boulders slumped together. I left lying together nude and bathed in blue morning light. I even left Chandu. I left the people whom I felt it so easy to care about. But everything except the Chandu bit isn’t anything close to abandonment. I don’t think you can just do that. I am moving to Mumbai this week to work on possibly the project of my diasporic dreams. But I think I’ve made it clear to most that I have a particular fondness for the boring things in life. So Hyderabad, this is only the beginning of my infatuation with knowing you as I do. And even from Delhi, I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think that I might just have to let my stunning leopard leap.