Poetry by Deepika Rani
Edited by Olivia Mondragon & Saima Sarwar
what if
you’re being emptied of life
To give life again
pregnant with a pittish feeling in the stomach
a growing child of uncertainty
with swollen feet determined to cross the ocean
A vagrant arriving at his court
Breaking like glass
Agitated hands shooting up in prayer
Locking eyes with the mirror of the sapphire ocean
The halfway meeting of one body of water
With another
Shattering, dissolving, parting, escaping helplessly
Relinquish to heaven a life unfinished
Only to wake up naked
Sinking in your own crimson enriched plasma
Lips quivering
Teeth chattering
Breath smoldering
Coughing out every last word
Every broken syllable
Every silence clogged inside
Being released like a tap bursting open
A soft rain
Trickling down your legs
Washing away
all that has come before this moment
the black chasm inside of you
Stretches and widens
Swallowing you whole
With you lost in a never-ending
vortex of expansion
chanting hymns and mantras
Meditating on life’s name
Dilating and contracting
To the cyclical breath
The pulsating drumbeat
Of your contractions
In tune with the rhythm of life
Gentle ripples
Intensify into piercing surges
Ebb and flow
As quickly as they come
Each wave
Stronger than the last
Squat in prayer
In humility and submission
Enter into this labor of love
On your knees
Making guttural noises
Howls of dirge and triumph
Lighting vicious flames
With the matchsticks of your tears
Enclosing yourself in a ring of fire
Tearing, Burning, and Crowning
Feral and vicious
A living artwork made of vermilion
You made a plea at his doorstep
And he responded verily
Kun Faya Kun
“Be, and it is!”
With rage,
you rise up like a whirling dervish
Standing empty-handed yet so complete
Palms lifted in surrender and devotion
Your cream colored robe billowing
in a ceaseless circular motion
Reaching towards heaven
And
With a final scarlet plush of blood
And the sound of a divine cry
A timeless reverberation
you
at last
look down
At the spitting image
Of yourself
The one you’ll love forever
Artist Statement: Like a snail without a shell, I am delicate and vulnerable. I have no protection from the elements and I’m painfully aware of my fragility. It’s easy to feel like a speck of dust in a world that seems so much bigger than you, to be seen, heard, and valued. Entering into the realm of self-expression is a bold move to make, it requires a certain fire, a willingness to explore the depths of the soul. Poetry has never been flowery verses on paper to me. It’s a process that extracts something in the flesh out of me. It’s an exploratory experience, a meditative space that is as daunting as it is sacred.
In my piece, “Water (Re) Birth,” I write from a place of reflection and resolve. Utilizing themes of femininity, sufism, and water as a portal of life, I compare childbirth to a harrowing life experience. By doing so, I explore the idea of life as an act of shedding old lives and coming into new ones. Birth is one of the most auspicious albeit visceral experiences in life. Like childbirth, life is a labor of love and the fruit of this labor is uncertain. Both labor and life are journeys and acts of faith which ultimately lead to a rebirth of the spirit. It may not seem like something we’re capable of until we go through it, our own resilience an unexpected phenomenon. But however we choose to make sense of it, the presence we have is powerful and not accidental. So whatever your sense of interiority is like at this moment, whatever feelings you’re harboring within yourself right now, I hope you’ll take this piece as a testament to the power of your own being. That with time, you will, with grace, come out on the other side, reborn.