Divine Transformation Interlude (feat. Natasha Rao & Aliza Grace)

Watching Jain nuns sweep peacock feathers across the earth
I wanted to become one of them
I was pupal
Shifting in the uniform of my larval skin

The nuns practice ultimate nonviolence
Brushing the floor with fallen feathers
Cotton broom
Unbleached wool
To avoid bruising any insect

It was to me
An obvious way to live
Before I saw myself as small
Inelastic
I was large with guilt
Why girl
Why not mouse moth?

My mother asked
Where do you see your self in ten years
And I said barefoot forest floor
Fostering compassion
Wearing a muslin cloth over my mouth
To avoid swallowing some winged thing

I didn't auspicate the apartment in Brooklyn
Sponging blood from mosquitos off my wall
Could not imagine I would cultivate a new cruelty
Not just obvious roach spray and rat trap
But killing the unobjectionable
Gnats and fruit flies who inhabit this arbitrary world
For just a breath

Last week I ate exclusively the unborn
Salmon roe and quail egg
In one luscious bite
The distance between what I thought I was
And what I am grows

I could have been a kind of fly
I could have been kind