i started writing lotus blossom on the 10th of july, on an aeroplane somewhere between london & mumbai. i wrote the last word of the last poem exactly two weeks later, on the 24th of july – just a few metres away from the hospital where i was born in india.

these are more thoughts than poems, i think – about love, about being an immigrant, about never quite knowing where to call home. to the person taking the time to read this: thank you in advance for letting me share them with you. it means more to me than you could possibly imagine.

for my grandmothers, indira & niranjana,

who taught me to withstand the weight of the world.

we catch a 5.45 am cab to the airport just as the city awakens,

rubs her sleepy eyes, yawns a few cars onto the open road / mouth

split-open, teeth white & dream-misted. every wistful daydream

about leaving home to go home unravels itself into the dawn like

a ribbon of light, a tangle of sun, i think, i never saw my grandmother

knitting in all those years sat by her feet, but her old sari lies folded

by my bedside lamp & maybe that’s almost the same thing.

mama misses the sunrise i point out, but she beams so wide

it’s like the sun lives behind her lips. we slip in & out of english & gujarati and can’t swallow our excitement at the dream of being

a world away / i’ve squeezed every ring my aunt gave me 

onto my heat-swollen fingers in hope that she’ll notice

when i grab her hands and kiss her cheeks just-past midnight,

bombay-time. my littlest finger shines with pearl-moon.

chaand. she lives there to serve as a reminder that 

the skies are the same no matter which country i call home.

that’s love. it’s knowing that my family sees the same stars i see, 

even when we’re miles apart. it’s the extra suitcase we carry 

for my cousins, stuffed with aero bars and raspberry toffee and puddings. it’s the empty suitcase in the boot, for all the gifts 

we know they’ll send back. that’s love.

it’s the chocolate that melts in the mumbai heat. it’s anything sweet.

it’s carrying an empty suitcase to the airport.

it’s always leaving space for more.

security at the airport stops my mama and pulls me back from the barrier. breaks into a plane-wing smile. asks mama if i’m her daughter, in hindi warm like daybreak. beams wider when mama says yes.

security says she could spot our love from a mile away, in how my shoulders slope the same way my mother’s do. in my crooked nose, in my angular face, in my wide eyes. my mother laughs in disbelief, and she insists that mama must’ve looked just like me when she was eighteen.

mama shakes her head. “huṁ tēṭalī sundara na hatī.”

on the plane to mumbai, i tell mama to smile, lift the corners of her down-turned mouth like a feather fallen from the sky. i look at her again, then realise that her lips curve towards the earth the same way my grandmother’s did.