Tanima

Climb, Bite, Scratch

a black ant is making the climb
from floor to wall, clambering 5 awkward steps
and slipping back down
like a video glitch, action replay.

my bed is a mattress on the floor 2 feet away
with an indentation in the middle that hugs me when
i sleep. for 793 days i have been roused by ant
bites on my body, a rash that spreads when touched
like a shooting star with an angry tail.

when i was young they taught us Moral Science
with textbooks full of stories to drill dull life
lessons into a classroom of children squirming
like a can of worms.

Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness,
Unity in Diversity. ridiculous,
like Laughter could ever be The Best Medicine.

remember the story of the king who lost 1 battle,
saw a spider’s 45 failures to spin its web
in a dark forest, then plundered his enemy and won –
Try, Try Again Until You Succeed
like maybe the 46th time?

i was always a bad student. what’s another corpse when
i am already paying the price for acts this world has deemed
criminal? i pick up my steel bowl and launch 2 neat blows.
the ant thrashes about, its legs all angles, and as i turn to sleep
wonder who will deliver me a justice as swift, a mercy as sweet.
like i say, Spare Me The Trial And The Trying.

again i wake at night in mad itch and confusion,
my body streaked with red revolt. am i
allergic to confinement, unfurling wounds
like a fury internal to my blood?

as my nails crack and skin hives,
let the the textbooks simply read: Climb, Bite, Scratch.
some striving beyond life itself, some nourishment
beyond food, some desperate urgency of contact. though
i cannot see from my cell there must be out there a thing
like a sun and its seasons, some steep, mortal climb away.

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Personals

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Straddling Chicago and Delhi, Tanima writes poetry, makes theatre, and sometimes works on a PhD. Previously published in Soundzine, Rise Up Review, and Indent: The Body and the Performative.

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