they say to stay demure, wrap the cloth around their bodies and cover the tops of their cleavage with chains of twenty-four karat gold from rajasthan. there is always smoke somewhere and i am never pale; in the silhouette of the mother i glimpse myself like a reflection of past holiness. i am never demure. eyeliner from yesterday smears itself onto my cheeks and i stick my tongue out so i look like the goddess of death, dark and senseless.
the others call me exotic. call my eyes big like a painting and my skin coffee, caramel, gold; i should feel like a goddess but i feel less than human. how does one become demure? the chanting of the old man in the ragged dirty cloth is treated like silver from the tongue of a god, and the bells are always too loud and my thighs fall asleep. it saves me in the end. painted eyes and streaks of color on foreheads sort themselves out into a mythology that finally make me feel human and the cold tile is better than a warm pale hand flush against my forehead.
