Ronak Gajjar

“She already knew from personal experiences that life could be cruel and unfair. She also knew she had to do what it took to survive. But she never thought she had to hurt the person she deeply loved.”
― M.V. Kasi, Bound by Hatred

“Aubade to Langston"

When the light wakes & finds again
the music of brooms in Mexico,
when daylight pulls our hands from grief,
& hearts cleaned raw with sawdust
& saltwater flood their dazzling vessels,
when the catfish in the river
raise their eyelids towards your face,
when sweetgrass bends in waves
across battlefields where sweat
& sugar marry, when we hear our people
wearing tongues fine with plain
greeting: How You Doing, Good Morning
when I pour coffee & remember
my mother’s love of buttered grits,
when the trains far away in memory
begin to turn their engines toward
a deep past of knowing,
when all I want to do is burn
my masks, when I see a woman
walking down the street holding her mind
like a leather belt, when I pluck a blues note
for my lazy shadow & cast its soul from my page,
when I see God’s eyes looking up at black folks
flying between moonlight & museum,
when I see a good-looking people
who are my truest poetry,
when I pick up this pencil like a flute
& blow myself away from my death,
I listen to you again beneath the mercy
of a blue morning’s grammar.

Originally published in the Southern Humanities Review, Vol. 49.3”
― Rachel Eliza Griffiths

“Khush hotey hain par vasal mein yun mar nahin jaatey,
Aaee shab-e hijra ki tamanna mere aagey.
[Vasal: union, shab-e hijra : night of separation]
The intense desire to die that I had in the night of separation has been fulfilled today by the intense bliss of union.”
― Hasan Suhail Siddiqui, DUSK TO DUSK The Eternal Flame of Mirza Ghalib Urdu Poetry

“We are what our thoughts have made us. So take care what you think. Thoughts live. They travel far.”
― Preeti Shenoy, Life is What You Make It: A Story of Love, Hope and How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny