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THERE ARE NO MORE QUEER POEMS LEFT IN ME
  i don't write queer poetry anymore
which is to say that the poetry of grief bubbling in my heart like milk curdling in a parent's bosom is no more queer for its subjects have changed no more do i ask if gays have rights or if trans women can live no more do i praise the courage the resilience the grit it takes to survive
  for quite some time i have been asking can the homosexual eat? is there enough food on her table? has she got a friend who won't abandon her the moment anger & grief & hurt & loss claw a space between them?
  don't you get it?
it is so difficult to write queer poetry when one has to wonder if the children of the forest he is friends with will have a home when rivers & states claim theirs?
  and what poetry does one write
when his friend— a shelter under the scorching sun finds unemployment digging his very roots —roots planted despite the fires of caste —roots nurtured even as hunger sat like an uninvited guest at dinner
  i am so tired of waking up to a genocide and wondering if my t-girl can get a job before her rent runs out
  i know i know it's not at all queer to not want the man who stood between me and a mob years ago lynched because his name carries the blessings of an Arabic prophet
  i don't know what queer poetry means anymore since i found out one can't hold on to crutches and dignity together
  let the record show— please let the record show that i tried— i tried to talk about boys loving each other and t-boys with wind cradling their chests teaching t-girls how to braid their beautiful hair let the record show that i learnt to bake a cake and got the swingers break into whatever dance they liked but it couldn't be this it couldn't be just this tell me it isn't just this but queers bashing the fuck outta cops like it was supposed to be like it began in the truth of simple things no justice no pride

  A LOVE POEM WITHOUT A GOD
  if there was a god i could pray to for you i would offer it fresh produce from my farm and sacrifice at its altar chickens, goats, cows i have reared from the first day of their birth i would cross mountains on foot to reach its temple carrying water from the other side of the river to wash its floor i would venture into the darkest forests to find trees favourite to the god collect dry wood (never fell green ones, because they too are divine) to light the fire at its altar i would wait for the sun to ripen every grain follow the moon for every flower that blooms in its name all to offer to the god that could watch over you keep you safe at night, guide your steps in the day when you step out to seek all that gives you joy but that god does not exist so all i can offer is this poem an offering of words in the void a promise to do all this for no god for you to laugh and eat and love and read and rest

  BUSINESS AS USUAL
  i go to art museums as the world falls apart
i write poetry and make coffee and invite my friends over for lunch
  i miss the boy i loved who reminded me after breaking my heart that we were still friends and then one day decided that it was too much to be friends with me; work on yourself, he told me in his last email
  i moved cities/ remembered long-forgotten ancestral gods/ learnt to make meatballs/ i cried and my heart did not explode
  and i watched
  i watched children become bodies/ bones become ash/ homes become rubble/ olive trees uprooted/ star of David carved/ a child's toy decorating a soldier’s gun
  where was the child i wondered under the rubble/ in the plastic bag/ in a small grave— after all it only takes a fistful of land to bury a heart as in the rubble/ so in the land
  even when the world turns away abandons and wrings its hands men go to work to rescue a child to find a heart
  sometimes, mind you, it's still alive