Rohini Narayanan

August 2020

These words are slow-crafted 

for your easy consumption. 

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1.

Come, right here, just here. Remember, remember. 

We are connected at the wrist. Our

palms gentle & pushing. We are creating

dark rivers, & this is not 

drowning; this is revelation, this is ritual.

2.

I’m lucky that I constantly have to question and explain my identity, because it means that I know myself.

I used to hate my name. Rohini Rohini Rohini. I am going to stop pronouncing it the American way. 

Do I even want to be American

3.

What is your environmentalism without sustainability of the body?

The hands that harvest are Indigenous and Black and brown and queer and poor and immigrants and

If your green lifestyle rests on their exploitation, unfair labor, and erasure

it is performative, not sustainable. 

It all starts from the body—from the body comes continuance 

When maximum efficiency is required for small farms and workers to survive 

(the value of a forgotten bucket of heirloom tomatoes: $50)

and the demand of privilege makes it so that our organic and small farmers cannot even afford to eat the food they grow

and violence against people and identities already structurally and systemically oppressed is everydaynormalagainandagain

The primary thought of your activism should be sustainability of the body.

4.

I have no words. They have been sucked from me like marrow from a bone. I am empty. I am dry. There is nothing left inside me except my ribcage, missing its lungs.

5.

When I was younger, I complained about the food my mother would pack me for lunch: leftover rice and dal, fish curry, and other spiced meals. They smelled too strong and were too messy for me to bring to school. Eating lunch became an embarrassment. Why couldn’t I have sandwiches, raw vegetables, and dessert like all my other friends? I can only imagine how hurt my mother must have felt. She kept packing me the same kinds of lunches and began to tell me stories about her own childhood. Raised by a single mother, sometimes all she had to eat for breakfast was a single boiled egg that she would split with her sister. Even with this knowledge, I hated the way my mother ate fish or chicken, not stopping until the marrow was sucked out of the bones, neatly piling the remnants on the edge of her plate. I didn’t care that this was simply part of my mother’s culture or that her family couldn’t afford to waste the nutritional value of the marrow. I just thought it was disgusting.

How could I have allowed self-hate to spring from the ideals of colonizers and Eurocentrism? 

6.

Liberal, small town racism is implicit. In a way, actually, it’s even more dangerous than outright, violent racism—because in this so-called perfect, safe, liberal “bubble,” no one believes that change is still needed. And no one is willing to accept that they themselves might need to change.

It is hidden under a carefully constructed facade of well-meaning whiteness and comes from where you least expect it.

7.

Loving her feels like playing chamber music, but improvised

Wildness spiraling up the base of my spine

until I cannot breathe her any closer

8. 

My grandmother was saving the earth too

it just didn’t look attractive to you.

Interesting how it’s our poor communities, which are disproportionately Black and brown, that already live in smaller homes. Thrift clothing. Save and reuse EVERYTHING. Don’t go shopping as much. But it’s not white and rich and it makes you uncomfortable so we’ll just ignore that, right?

My mother never got a single piece of new clothing growing up so she made sure I would never have to wear second-hand clothes.

You don’t get to judge people for the food they eat (not ever) but especially when it’s because they can’t afford anything else.

You’ve just been fooled by the corporations into thinking that the blame falls mostly on the individual

but notice which individuals you, sitting in your eco-warrior privilege, are blaming.

Social justice is climate activism is climate justice.

9.

I remember when I used to buy shades of foundation meant for white people because I thought I would look prettier with lighter skin. And I know that it was taught. I was conditioned to hate myself. Because when I was little I knew exactly how beautiful I was

It reminds me of the Fair and Lovely skin lightening creams sold in India targeted towards beautiful brown women brainwashed into believing that whiteness is the only way to be lovely

10.

We made wings out of a plastic bag

11.

I don’t have the privilege for my words to be misunderstood. So I write, finding the balance between beauty and clarity of language—

my message too important to be interpreted

⋯

To let you see my unedited thoughts makes me vulnerable

And is a gift