Another Lonely Indian Boy from Calcutta
I always felt like an Indian boy
from Calcutta banging on the tabla
reading from right to left eating rice and dahl
night after night trying
like a bad monk to transcend eating pizza only
when my mother was teaching new parents
to push consciousness freshly wrapped in skin
through a vaginal hole like a universal crime
and I will confess
that Berlin has done nothing outside
of serve as a reminder how much I am not
the compilation of myths that I concretized
while peering out of the eyes of a ten year old
Iowan
I ask the kid
on the S-Bahn if it gets lonely and what
he does besides sport and work but instead
he tells me he has given up
dating
as there’s no room in Deutschland for others
like him and I know exactly what he means
living in Buckow
of all the lonely places
as everyone on the train averts their eyes
as they all pretend not to see him on the street
as if they were born with the inside of their eyelids
painted white
as I remember why I was forced to take a vow
of silence
surrounded by those who prefer not to talk
to me but instead to another lonely Indian boy
from Calcutta