Vivek Shraya

blue ink blank paper knelt over

wept over now i grasp why thirty-four

years of praying through writing

awoke no god

even

this page

is white

i acknowledge i stole this

but i am keeping it social justice

or social performance

in my finest i was white

and i was woman.

later roused by r&b riffs and emotion

the closest semblance on radio to indian

classical devotion whitney taught me

a new way to pray but when i open

my mouth i’m told restraint sing less

dear raji sorry for not recognizing you as my brother

admiring you as my sister.

sometimes i forget that i know

how to sing.

i nicknamed it “oprah”

shifting shame into a joke about a black woman.

...i think one has to even abandon the phrase ‘ally’ and understand that you are not helping someone in a particular struggle; the fight is yours.

—ta-nehisi coates

brown life is an unbroken bearing of the weight and hollow of the active

absence of brown life.

race is for people of colour to think about—it is what happens to “them”—they can bring it up if it is an issue for them (although if they do, we can dismiss it as a personal problem, the race card, or the reason for their problems).