He will find another girl with coffee breath and I just hope that when he kisses her he doesn't think of me

He will find another girl with unshaven legs and a moan like crashing waves and I just hope that when he fucks her he doesn't say my name

He will find another girl who bites her cheeks whose nose wrinkles when she laughs whose eyes sometimes leak and I just hope that when he holds her he doesn't miss me

He will find another girl with cold hands that set his skin on fire and I just hope that when he finds her he'll still remember me

There was a tent on the corner of Main and Swift,

billowing red and white parading as the brick coliseum

where our basketball team suffered a crushing defeat,

108 to 3. Our MVP ran out crying—if the crowd hadn’t been busy

shrieking, they would have seen sweat and tears mix with

mascara. No one said the M stood for manly.

The next day, every newspaper in our city and theirs crowed

about our mascot seen on a plane to Tijuana.

Flailing Turkey Flees Nest on Account of Failure.

Our town was split between tears of laughter and tears

of tears. Me, I couldn’t think about anything but this:

how lucky that Mexico isn’t Thanksgiving-ing.

I pictured drug lords chasing down our Flailing Turkey,

and cutting it open to find a scared man in a sweaty suit.

Gobblegobble, oh dear God, please don’t shoot me.

The men with their guns, expecting cocaine, find instead,

a cracked up man. I wonder if sorrow flavors poultry well?

What about desperation? Panic? Regret?

The flavor of a mourning town stuck to my tongue

like some decade old, specialty wine

and drunk off the displeasure

of a good fifteen thousand,

I booked us tickets to the circus

and hoped for another show.

Leaping from ring to ring, in several high-heeled bounds,

you growled at the tigers and ogled the acrobats,

and bruuaahh‘d with kids making shadow elephants

with their arms as trunks and trunks as backs.

The glow in your eyes told me you’d be just fine,

and you might enjoy it and I was truly, a little bit disappointed.

Then they ushered us back to our seats,

and you waved your little souvenir booklet and bragged

about all the signatures you’d gotten and how Hanna,

the tightrope walker who once lived in Ukraine,

was a “snazzy kinda chick” and how you’d gotten along so well

because you could both pick up small things with your toes.

The lights dimmed and the show started, and you,

wide-eyed, did not look at me once.

You hadn’t ever looked so happy in all our time together,

and I could tell you thought I’d done good to buy those tickets

by the way that you squeezed my hand and ooh-ed and ahh-ed,

and fawned even more when the lights came up.

One would think that I’d just given you the world.

But on my part, I was just a little sorry,

because you were spinning like the acrobats, but in awe and love

and your eyes were sparkling in a way I had not intended.

Because I really thought that you’d be scared of clowns,

and I wanted to see another show.

Oh Mother India!

Why are you like this?

Heaven for the able,

Hell for the feeble.

Will you ever stop the mindless rivalry with Pakistan?

Why do you tell your daughters not to go out rather than telling your sons to behave?

Why are you building a 450 million dollar statue while people are dying without food?

Oh! The hypocrisy.

Talking about the evils of the west,

while emigrating to the states every chance we get.

Banning pornography,

government officers enjoy it during assembly.

We are the proud creators of the sensual Kamasutra,

then why do we do we act like giggling schoolchildren everytime we hear the ’s word’.

Sex! Yes, I said it out aloud!

What are you going to do?

Arrest me? Like you did to the 2 girls for liking a post on Facebook?

Worshipping cows

and bashing humans.

You call yourself secular

but each official form asks- Hindu? Muslim? Sikh? Christian?

Pornstars like Leone get all the stardom and fame,

while rape victims and prostitutes are spat upon.

You keep feeding your stone idols

while children starve outside the temple.

Same sex marriage is illegal

Marital rape is not.

Cricket is a religion

while world cup winners of our national sport can’t get a rickshaw home.

Why does it take decades to get justice?

Why was a man suspended from his job for 29 years for an offence of stealing a single dollar, which he did not commit?

Why India Why?

A baby’s future is determined on two questions-

Boy or Girl?

Engineer or Doctor?

Life is not a fricking factory!

The brown country wants to be ‘fair and lovely’.

Streets are open toilets and spitting yards.

What you wear determines your caste and how you are treated.

Grades and marks are given more importance than actual learning.

Tell me when will that A+ be relevant in real life?

Why is a stereotypical lewd comedy film on top of the charts

while films with any moral message simply ignored?

Why did you spend less on a mission to mars

than a movie about that mission?

Remember, it has been 70 years since you became free

yet the caste system is still present.

India, You must answer this time.

India, You are not getting away this time.

India, do you know what the worst part is?

Despite all this,

We Indians still say everyday

Mera Bharat Mahan!