13 April, 2020: Kiran Bath

Sydney, Australia


On [Easter] Sunday I reflected on all the false temples — yoga studios, law firms, Instagram, marriage — I drafted, then abandoned the poem on this. I can’t panic because patterns are technically soothing and predictable. Mine is to abandon then return. Our lives are governed by this rhythm, consider the Sun, forever appearing then abandoning then returning again. 
 
Diary of a Rhythm:
 
· Return to the nightly ritual of smoking yourself into Indica stupor, Mango Weiss bars & HD millennial content: Hulu’s Sad Hot Girls — a technocratic roulette of (mostly) white femmes showcasing their neurosis & romantic privilege. Pass out and rise with a sore throat & wounded tolerance.
· Abandon and swear off streaming & smoking until you can source some mullein and lavender (herbs for lungs).  
· Return to morning rituals of mool mantra, books & working out. Only Zoom other darlings of colour like T and I with whom you fawn over Cathy Hong’s essays, design revolutions & be loud with your adoration of one another’s static-ridden bedhead lewks.
· Abandon Twitter & attempts at connecting with well-meaning white friends after suffering temporary hearing loss from the ring of the words “melanin” & “absorption of Vitamin D” in response to you mentioning the alarming rate of black people contracting COVID-19. (What is the meaning of well-meaning?)
· Return to your fading mother’s lap, nurse her cheeks & wonder about your lion-love in LA — another Sun you orbit — wonder whether romantic bond can substitute maternal love. How the long-distance trains you both for fruition in absentia.
· Abandon thoughts of cancer, visas & funeral restrictions; crave simplicity and resign to the familiar velvet of Indica haze & “Trick Mirror” (thank you, Jia) amusement; perhaps High Fidelity is a better distraction tonight. Perhaps you’ll be alive enough to touch yourself before midnight. 


Kiran Bath is a poet from Brooklyn by way of Sydney. She has received fellowships and support from Poets House, Kundiman and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work appears in wildness, The Adroit Journal, Lunch Ticket and the ever elusive ‘elsewhere’.

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