#9

My generation is growing flowers in our fast-disappearing balconies. We are making timely bargains with the Sun, and exchanging notes on how to reuse kitchen refuse. The frequency of earthquakes in the Himalayas has increased and T has grown a perfect yellow rose. We are stubborn, have no control, and jaded enough to question our five-day work weeks that start with watering our plants (sometimes a little too much). We toil and bemoan, we suffer and seek; we dig, we dig, we dig. L introduces me to Wanda, Nemora, and Mr S. I wish them all a pleasant evening before joining her for some local wine over which we talk about misogyny at the workplace, in our faith, in the streets, and in the way Goddesses have harsher punishments, longer banishments. The reservoirs in America are evaporating faster, our deadlines are coming closer, our spirits are becoming sheer and wrinkled bearing marks of how much they’ve been stretched. We watch helplessly as a 12-year-old Muslim boy dies by suicide because his teacher called him a terrorist. We rebel by loving, by questioning authority, by going to therapy and saying to each other, "Do you want me to listen or do you want advice?”. We kiss our inter-faith partners on the mouth and hide them from everyone else. The lavender, ginger, mint, kadi patta grow in our Eastern, morning sunlight. There is a rap on our window. There is a set of matching pots in our window. There is a yellow watering can in our window. There is a tiny hope in our window. We put it into the soil and every day we wait for the flowers to grow.