no one asks / for me to be another / Achilles / Heracles / Carrion crow / eye close / to wanting / lips and myths / to stoop lower / slurping another / skin / escape / alchemy / of a hero / or what a man could be / that this body is not the one / that needs to be / kept in the cheek / to chew / desperate arsenal / of men / or what men / could do / if they did not skirt / around their currents / still checking the reflection / to see / if it holds / any difference / like foam on a river / seal and stasis / neither here / nor air / an eddy / a mouth / trap / whorl trembling / barely touched / sent shuddering / a bargain / keep going / so I can tell myself / there is no war / no demi-god / no touch / necessary / that I can be more / than this stripping / this naked wrestling / with no one / vulnerability only / as far / as it exposes / some deeper meaning / Achilles was named pain / right after he was squeezed out / and I don’t even care / about Heracles / just his madness / that he could never be his own man / that my own name in Punjabi means love / means nothing / without this / context / same as any myth / if there were a choice / would I tend to this self? / Transmute the body / like a beak / tending to the aqueous chamber / and then the cranial butter within / but never considering the corpse / of the same likeness / the crows / just loom around the dead / crow simply acknowledging crow / knowing there’s already enough / of everyone else to go around.
Click here to read Preet Bhela on the origin of the poem.
Image by narubono on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Self-Portrait - April 25, 2025