Mockingbird/Blue

Dating a white girl who grew up learning to be like Jesus reminds me of being a brown girl feeling Ishwara for the first time.

When my parents told me about feeling the color blue in the people on the subway. How they saw the color blue in people with addictions. How I see the color blue in my kids.

My mom sang me a song about pies. My dad sang me a song about buying me a mockingbird. If I hadn’t fallen asleep by the time both of them were over, I was fucked-up.

God is baked into my family, Even in their fuck-ups. My parents felt God. Felt blue.

Dating a white girl who says grace over chicken and mashed potatoes reminds me of taking one last fistful of shaahi paneer from the table as Nanaji fights my parents for the bill.

To care is not to tally it up. To split the bill. To care is to get the bill because you love. Because you know next time you will be loved.

Maybe this is what I want you to learn from me and my family: trust. I want you to learn that I will treat you to shaahi paneer this time and the next time you visit. And slip two-hundred dollars into your wrist. We might not be rich but we give what we have and through that you get

Richer. Maybe this is what you don’t understand. Even if you get the bill this time, know that I will get it the next. There will always be a next. Because I am not leaving.

Dating a white girl who curls up in her Nana’s old Winnie the Pooh sweatshirts on the couch reminds me of walking a light up to Nanaji’s face with saunf and pink candies in my palm.

My body takes the score of everyone I’ve ever lost. It’s too much to feel. I remember all of these things. The mockingbird song my dad used to sing me.

 Dating a white girl who believes in God reminds me of being a brown girl who believes in Ishwara. We were both girls reaching for something greater, from two ends of the universe, to find one another.

My parents reached for something greater, from two ends of the universe, maybe not to find one another, but to find me.