“J’y suis, j’y reste”
(Here I am, here I stay)
Across the cerulean chasm of id,
I press the pincers of my forlorn self-pity
& bitter disappointment to set about
with ritualistic seppuku
—their wakizashi forged from a
nihilistic meteorite reeved in
the rictus-grin of atmospheric immolation.
Separation is an illusion.
Yet, when I dare slip away for
an hour or two from conscious contact
with the world, I find the unruly pangs of
dissatisfaction gurgling within my hara
when I make my ballyhooed return
only to find no new notifications
welcoming my resumption
of the cosmic ballet.
All the world’s a stage,
though it seems there was a mix-up
as all the men & women
trip over themselves
to deliver pilfered soliloquies
in their haste to prove
they’re not merely players.
There is no triumphal procession
—streets lined by radiant, beaming beauties
elbowing one another with discreet
viciousness for the privilege of festooning
me with a shower of rose petals as I pass,
swooning from my god-like aura,
no men yelling themselves hoarse,
holding their children aloft on
broad shoulders to glimpse
my ivory-scepter-wielding being,
no priest to bestow Victoria’s
laurel wreath upon my brow to mark me
as Jupiter’s human incarnation,
no attendant futilely attempting to
suppress my prodigious ego with murmured repetitions of memento mori,
remember, you are mortal
No, I don’t think I will.
Eternity imbues her essence within
every moment while I’m busy
mistaking Maya for reality
—reinforcing my misconceptions of
knowledge for experience,
experience for understanding,
understanding for awareness,
awareness for transcendence,
transcendence for enlightenment,
enlightenment for divinity,
divinity for infinity,
infinity for me.
A Matryoshka of ignorance put together by
a clumsy though undeniably cosmic Creator
immune to the internal chorus of
prevaricating saboteurs who, bless their
capricious hearts, try their level best to
gum up the assembly lines with
the gunk of self-consciousness
—ay, Copernicus, you ain’t the center
of no universe!—& the assorted
tawdry junk of the insecure heart.
Our brave partisans find no purchase
with their petty postulations accusing the
galactic craftsman of straying from
the carefully arrayed boundaries of
postmodern ironic irony-adjacent expression
—knowing you, knowing me,
both of us dizzy with vertigo from the
complicit carousel of wink-wink-nod-nod
—untrammeled & too conspicuously on
the nose without the ballasts of
bohemian, bourgeoisie-sanctioned
counter-culture pastiche to keep
your head above the waters &
sinking into twee’s irredeemable depths.
Content to stew in my fugue
of self-inflicted angst, disappointment
wrought from the unexpressed expectations
that I lay at the doorsteps of my friends,
family, & attractive strangers
—any stranger will do in a pinch, honestly.
I’m desperate to believe someone’s
thinking of me & I don’t exist
alone in an apathetic vacuum.
I’m an infinitesimal part of their day,
scraping a semblance of
existential meaning from the
crumbs of connection we share.
Waiting for a text back,
God forgets She created this world,
leaving us to our petty inanities.
“Allons-y”
(Let’s Go)
My partner tweets I’m to die for
(doable in an emergency)
Is that indicative of my precipitously
perched self-esteem now flatlining with
the elegance of a decommissioned Zephyr
We text each other passive-aggressive
links to ghostwritten Atlantic articles
The silent epidemic plaguing
anxious Zoomers—our
emotionally-avoidant attachment style
Today’s tarot spread tells of her first birth on Earth
as Lilith, Adam’s headstrong first wife
Defier of antediluvian patriarchy
she’s liberated from Eden’s bondage
Blessedly free of the constraints of sin
“Mademoiselle Mulligan”
We’d care less about what other people
think of us if we realized how
infrequently they do. Comforting pablum
—chicken noodle soup for the
calcified third eye—what do they think
when we flash through their minds?
We’re but bootlegged demos of
our most authentic selves.
Misshapen molds clouded by the fugue
of liquor, intoxicants, & remembrances
bereft of context, misfiled in time.
The night you made an ass of yourself
seared into a friend of a friend’s mind,
who conjures up the image of a
slightly oafish sot when your name is
mentioned in passing. Or the meet-cute
arranged by your friends, where you
tried a little too hard even though
the chemistry was palpable. Do you
ever cross their mind as a potential
what-if? A branching of fate
as they drift off to
sleep safe in the warm
embrace of their significant other?
Maybe it’s for the best.
You’re neurotic enough as it is.
To have the unvarnished truth of your
presence amid consciousness’ cosmic
kaleidoscope could preempt a monthslong
spiraling if someone’s interpretation of you
confirmed your worst fears,
affirming those least generous,
least compassionate self-appraisals.
Craving the authenticity of others
because it’s
something we rarely
offer ourselves.
Our sense of self: unstable,
ill-formed, & poorly thought-out without the projection of others’ vision of us to
hone in upon. To hew & chisel our
shortcomings into polished marble of
radiant beauty, to sand the roughest edges
into palatability. To know who loves us
just for who we are, & would they
mind terribly if we took a quick gander at
their notes & discovered for ourselves
what precisely within us is worth loving?
If we are in any way memorable or
inimitable or wholly replaceable &
interchangeable, just white noise,
an unremarkable cog puttering away.
I contain multitudes;
I am
infinite.
That’s great, sweetie, but would you
kindly do the needful & illuminate a litany
or three so I may retrace that barest of
frayed threads to discover where I land on
the tapestry of your experience with this birth?
Is there anything unique about my friendship,
about my love? If it weren’t me, it’d be
someone else, my understudy for the role
I didn’t know I’d auditioned for. &
could they please fax me some
words of affirmation ASAP
before I drown in doubt?
How little I see, know, & understand the
people I love most. I react to their illusions &
characters, not knowing the masks they’ll
don for the next person they see.
I don’t know who I am or
who I’ll be the next time the
Wheel spins to bring us together again.
Would you take it
if you had a do-over
with every person you met?
Or would you let your last meeting,
the final interaction, serve as their most
recent & visceral impression of you?
How many people would you settle for,
eh, good enough, &
how many people would you desperately
conjure for take-two, hoping they’ll
laugh a little louder at your jokes,
hold you just a little tighter, & understand
who you are just a little deeper?
Who did you judge a little too harshly,
maybe dismiss a little too quickly?
Who do you reckon wants another shot with you?
Who did you let slip
from your world
too easily?
“jaywalking”
At the do-not-walk sign
with no one around,
a second stolen from
the faceless crowd of whom
we’re but a number
Self-satisfied smiles hidden now
within your gaze like thunder
A glance shared
conveys who we were
glimpsing ourselves in the reflections
of one another’s eyes, fumbling in the dark
Our doubts, buried among tomorrow’s cavern
so nobody realizes we share their name
nor the inward pull of grace
Kharan Badri is a first-generation American with roots in India, Germany, & Syria. His creative influences are his cats, Freyja & Helios, & the work of Jim Harrison, Rumi, John Koenig, & Terry Pratchett. He composes poetry, prose, & comedy on his website, badwriter.net. His poems appear in San Antonio Review, Wayfarer, riverSedge, ArLiJo, & Bryant Literary Review.
