Do You See the Stars?

This is waking up. Remember
when you pressed your thumbs,
thick and unforgiving,
into my eye sockets, slow as death
until I gave in
to the dizzy and you whispered,
accent sticky, dripping in rose syrup,

Do you see the stars?

And I did. They burst in the darkness like kisses.
This city has a heart, fluttering
crazed and drunken as a beast, fingers
itchy and always wanting, wanting
and a mouth with hunger so palpable
I gave myself in an instant. I was new,
damp when I came here, ridiculous
as one of those puppy mill survivors
too petrified to take a single step from the cage
into green grass and sunshine. I stumbled,
blinded,
but for the stars.

I risked it all for you
because it was home, because it was you,
the cage I left behind, dank and cloying
and so sadly, pathetically familiar. It was a husk,
forgotten like nightmares and used-to-be’s,

but it was all I’d ever known.

Drag Me Through the Mess

Love stories aren’t tidy and wrapped up in ribbons—
at least not ours,
and that’s how I like it. Drag me

through the mess, the neuroses pressed into your brain
by the hands that wove your childhood jalebi
and tell me something nice
that makes me feel pretty, something

crafted with nuances and peppered
with subtleties that neither of us fully believe,
but the lies so sweet and drenched in syrupy half-
truths

we can’t help but binge on the gluttony,
engorging ourselves on each other.

Dressed

I wear scars like others wear scarves,
pretty embellishments and pops
of color, like women slip into little
black dresses to flash their pumped
up décolletage, as men pull up their good
worn jeans, tight in the thighs
to peacock the lines drawn sharp with deadlifts.
For me,
my scars are the echoes of passion,
the trimmings of cancers hand cut
for high fashion. They’re the accessories
of eating disorders, the pleats and embroidery
of bad plastic surgery, the finishing touches
from the glass shards, jagged ruching,
in curious young flesh.
I wear my scars like you wear your staples,
confident in their permanence and not anywhere able
to care what They think. Are the keloids
less beautiful than this season’s
heel height? The jagged lines less appealing
than what Jackie O. might? I’m draped
in a wardrobe designed just for me, created
by a force beyond the runway, and tailored
to fit like a couture wedding dress, no prêt-à-porter,
cheap knockoffs for the masses, a style
beyond what others may choose, but right from the start
it was magnificent—and lovely to you.

Jessica Mehta is a multi award-winning Aniyunwiya poet and artist. She is currently preparing for her US Fulbright Scholar Award (2022/23) and completing her PhD. in poetry at the University of Exeter, where she serves as a post-graduate research representative at the Centre for Victorian Studies. Learn more at www.thischerokeerose.com.

Photo: Exiting Prison by Emanuela Iorga