for the children of pain(t) and cement

Poem 1: what is home but a dilemma

Photo by Metin Ozer on Unsplash

(an anthology)

and when Pa comes home
smelling of pain(t) and cement
we know that tomorrow
is rice gruel
and they will
call us on the phone and
say our name in four different
languages — just to tell us
how much we owe
to a place we don’t belong.

poetry anthology of a South Indian immigrant in Singapore. stanzas about identity, belonging, cultural dissonance, and the pain of searching for oneself in the sea of everything and nothing at the same time.