Dr. Grandfather, Please Heal Me, Shenba Vairavan

my best friend pops pills 

so today’s problems can become 

four days’ ago 

and she can breathe through plastic tubes while

her mother cries over her failing body. 

her mother that chose motherhood too late, chose

motherhood after her daughter’s innocence lay raped

in a janitors closet, as the 

seeds of bipolar disorder 

grow from the bleached floors 

and stick to her bruised, bleeding skin. 

her mother chose the indian community so

that her daughter 

would always grow up with a family, yet

that girl drowns in loneliness and 

cannot accept love. 

my best friend pops pills because 

there’s always strife; 

strife in not being smart enough, 

like the dr. grandfathers that came here, the dr.

grandfathers that did better than others, the dr.

grandfathers that prove that 

we can do well in this country. 

well, mentally ill, and dying as our people are

shot for no reason at all: 

misunderstood as muslims, 

understood as asian, 

acknowledged as not white. 

my best friend pops pills because how much can

an indian girl do survive, 

knowing she’ll never live 

like the white men that stare at her 

breasts in hunger.

we were born to women who sacrificed their dream

only to be women that don’t have the will to

accomplish any of their own.