The Girl Who Bleeds Dirt
Lakewood, OH
2021, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
i. Her heart –
In the Summer
Froth ripples against my legs, my toes turn to prunes
As I watch the lake tame sand dollars and calm
The throaty calls of gulls on the horizon criticize
Tourists as they bask on neon floaties.
Paint flakes off those swimming toys drifting down
Water guns clutched by boys who shoot tinted water
Aiming at each other.
The lake rises, rises, rises unyielding,
Boys bobbing at the surface gasp. School taught them
Something or another about global warming?
But I trust in the pure, saccharine water I always knew
Marveling in its power to connect as if to say
Welcome to the First World.
ii. Her brain –
In the Winter
A Japanese steakhouse grills that
Slack jawed silver fish
Corrugated maw slivered dish
A chef hacked its head; stringy bunches of tendons
Dangle between the jaw and body
Milk rings and plastic shards and sea glass
Cascading from its skull.
Chef looked distraught and struggled
To explain this is normal; that all fish
Have turpentine coursing through their veins
Chew polystyrene; gnaw rubber… a healthy diet!
He set it before me as if to say
Your sushi is served.
iii. Her remains –
In the Indian Spring of 1983
My mother huddled within her crude bungalow
Crusted in mud and blood and
The acrid salt of the ocean that moistens dirt. She was
Left gasping in the carnage of a bloodless battle:
Her tongue ground raw; mouth filtering grit.
This is dirty water.
A defunct machine lacking a dynamo
Dynamo! That which powers and purifies
She laughed at the ignorance of sushi-fanatics and tourists
At beach-goers and first-world fools
A Cudgel bludgeoned my mother’s skull: liquified.
Left nothing but a parched trail in its wake as if to say
Welcome to the Real World.
The water rose, rose, rose, unyielding,
Pouring through straw windows and doors
It engulfed the city—monsoon season of the modern age.
Frantic, she cried watercolour
Screamed in bright crayon
Throat clotted with residue from
The only water she’d known; peppered with neon muck
Darker than her skin crisped by the sun
My mother knew no other.
By the Autumn I turned eleven
I realized, unlike her
I was baptized in crystal clear.
Swaddled and fondled by filtration
I had marveled in its power to connect
But I too bleed dirty water.
Reflection
I have grown up living in an apartment that overlooks Lake Erie, and every family trip I've had has taken us straight to the ocean banks. I have always found solace near the waters, whether it was for a quick study break on the shore or expanding my collection of seashells. My view on the ocean and lakes as a whole has been positive, so it wasn't until a trip to my mother’s birthplace of India a few years ago that I considered dirty water. Viewing water both as a force of destruction through monsoons, and a force we’ve destroyed through pollution, gave me new insight on its ability to connect us, and the plight people face in areas with water conditions less fortunate than my own. Seeing this firsthand sparked my interest in clean water accessibility, along with the issues of pollution. I hope to use my love of poetry and magical realism to draw attention to this issue in a slightly different way—with personal anecdotes. A struggle for one of us means a struggle for us all, and water bodies are connected the way people are, so I believe that when even one of us doesn’t have access to clean water, we are all afflicted.