Dear Paranoia,
Rushi Vyas
The suicide rate for Asian-Americans (6.10 per 10,000) is about half that of the national rate
(11.5 per 10,000).
About 75 percent of those who die by suicide give warning signs.
– APA
Gift your double helix to the mouth
No matter how we grow roots bind will
wind still blows Fallacy Spring casts shadows
below the creek’s ice Sun slips through creases
between blinds bleeds color in garments hung to dry
through windows We cannot predict the arbitrary
warning sign to which shade greens will fade
This tree strung by miscarriage’s shadow bends
stripped limbs too long in sun Disjunction my lip’s
crook my slow chew He left no note
Dear inheritance let us relent
to inevitable passing seasons I know
you just want me to survive
Funeral: Pilgrimage
Rushi Vyas
Cold water rests in a bucket on the grout creased square tile floor. A silver-green lizard suctions up and down the washroom wall. Yellow smog soaks through the screened window, outside which the black dogs who live under the bamboo scaffolding surrounding the under-construction grey cement building across the street nuzzle the sides of their young. Fingers test water before pouring over grey-black hair to rouse eyelids. Instructions on constructing a self: lather, rinse, dry, clothe, fill with idli and clove-laced sambar, nod in greeting and leave to breathe the outside air thrumming with Ring Road traffic, dust-pocked, tulsi scented from the row of bushes flanking the gravel road giving way, in moments when the wind is right, to the dead rodent stench of the lot turned neighborhood landfill one block away. Walking through swamp air burning in rising day, feet mount gravel past a windowless hospital, approach a pond whose far-side’s green field, lush with palm trees and tall grasses, collects neighborhood men’s motions. A kingfisher flaps and settles on bramble floating in the pond’s center. It finds no gap for reflection.
Move, move, move. Walking
through haze heals. One foot tramples
another’s holy.
about the writer
Rushi Vyas is an American poet living in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand where he is pursuing his PhD in English at the University of Otago. His first manuscript was named a finalist for the National Poetry Series (US) in 2018 and 2019. He earned his MFA at the University of Colorado-Boulder where he taught creative writing, and his B.S. at the University of Michigan where he co-created and taught a psychology seminar on finding meaning in life and death. Recent poems are forthcoming or published in 32 Poems, Redivider, Boulevard, AQR, Tin House, Adroit, Waxwing, and elsewhere.