by Jasmin Kaur
a river threatened to flow
and i stared at my sneakers
until my eyes were satisfactorily dry.
just dealing with stuff at home.
i don’t really wanna talk about it.
all it took was an
oh, sahaara. i’m really
sorry to hear that. is it
something that’s making
it hard to focus in class?
for my voice to crack
it’s really hard for me to pay attention
when my head is all over the place
i managed between sniffles and
tears wiped on kleenex
mrs. alvarez asked
what grounds you?
what pulls you back down
to earth when your worries
carry you away?
i shrugged
and then said
art, i guess.
i’m nervous most of the day
but when i’m drawing,
nothing’s on my mind
but my sketchbook.
her matte black lips became a
crescent moon and she nodded
in an almost-knowing way.
so art is what grounds you.
this is your only homework
for today:
research anxiety and grounding.
grade nine
each wispy stroke of cerulean paint
danced over the sky blue & navy
a new brush
thin & precise
dipped in eggshell white
traced slowly & carefully
over the ridges of my waves
foam & bubbles came to life
& in this moment
i was floating on a warm ocean
my fears, somewhere on
a distant shoreline.
the wounded deer
sitting at the back of mr. kim’s art class
i pored over frida kahlo’s painting
reflecting on the question written on the whiteboard
what does this painting say to you?
i studied frida’s almost-serene face
placed atop the body of a deer
stabbed through with exactly nine
blood-drenched arrows
deer-frida rested in the forest by the sea
somehow elegant in her suffering
and i wondered how long
we must distract
and paint
and survive
until our sorrow would finally and forever
wash away.
grade ten
so jeevan made it onto the basketball team and
i was sitting in the stands watching them practice.
and rhea climbed up the bleachers just to ask
me about shit that i didn’t want to answer.
why were you crying in the bathroom stall?
wasn’t a conversation starter but i answered,
just ’cause i felt confrontational that day:
because i’m in pieces over shit that will never
bother you. because i should’ve found a job
already so that i can pull my weight at home.
because at any given moment my whole life
could fall apart.
damn, she said. that sucks
learner’s permit
guilt crushed my shoulders when i asked and she said yes.
she was stronger than the shell of any car and i didn’t want to imagine all the collisions her body & mind & heart had faced.
mom and i locked eyes. my heart skidded against my ribs.
are you sure about this, mom?
you’ve been practicing
for this test for weeks.
you’re leaving here with
your learner’s permit,
okay?
the woman at the counter snapped at us like a neck
i need two pieces of id from you
my medical care card and student id
landed on the counter
and are you her parent or legal guardian?
her parent. here’s my
birth certificate and care
card. and my daughter’s
birth certificate.
she inspected our documents
and we braced ourselves for impact
your medical card is out of date.
i’ll update that for you.
oh, i’ll—i’ll do that
another day,
mom stammered.
you can’t access medical services until it’s updated.
right, yeah, i’m just running
late today. i’ll come back
tomorrow for that.
her glare traveled from mom to me to the long line
of people waiting impatiently behind us.
take your learner’s test at the booth to your left.
grade eleven
mrs. suderman asked the question as if
it was not a bullet aimed directly at my chest
why might immigration be a bad thing?
lorraine bishop’s hand shot up with no safety
too much immigration means less jobs for canadians.
and we don’t know what values immigrants are
bringing into canada. more immigration
could lead to more terrorism.
and i wanted to say so many things but anger clenched
my jaw and anxiety held my tongue. and no one else
interjected so she went on
i don’t think it’s right that real canadians have less
opportunities than immigrants.
and all i could see was the moment when
her immigrant ancestors first placed their feet
on north america turtle island
and claimed it as theirs and theirs
alone
and all i could hear was the word
undocumented
leaving mom’s lips like a curse
she desperately wished
to be freed from.
sahaara
august 2019–january 2020
an introduction
“It’s kinda trippy, huh?” I said as we made our way up the grand staircase, a romantic Bollywood tune echoing around us. “How the hell are we graduating in nine months?”
“Tell me why I feel like it’s gonna be a long-ass year. . . .” Jeevan sighed as he adjusted his black tie.
“What do you mea—OHHH SHIIIIIIT—” My long phulkari chunni caught itself between my heel and the final step of the staircase and I plummeted, face-first, toward the blue carpet. My palms hit the ground just before an arm swooped around my waist and shoulders.
For a moment, I lay there in a daze, my heels hooked around the final step of the staircase and Jeevan’s arms around my torso, as if I was doing an absurd push-up with his support.
“Ouch. Ouch-ouch-ouch! Oh, shit! My ankle,” I hissed, ignoring the kids in the lobby who’d frozen midway through a game of tag to gape at my pitiful existence.
“Crap. Hold on, I got you.” Jeevan helped me sit upright on the stairs and quickly moved down a few steps to examine my ankle.
“This would happen to me,” I groaned.
“Your ankle isn’t swollen or anything . . . try to move it?” His saucer eyes were brimming with concern. They were visible, for once, without the barrier of his thick glasses. He’d worn contacts to his future sister-in-law’s reception on Roop’s insistence. It was their first time together at a family function and, according to his girlfriend, first impressions were everything.
I rotated my ankle and it throbbed, but it definitely wasn’t broken. “I think I sprained it.”
“Here.” Jeevan offered me a hand and helped me up. “Let’s get you to a seat. I’ll go find some ice.”
Jeevan eased me into a chair, and I tried to pivot my ankle again. When I shrieked like a newborn, a pair of aunties lobbed a curious look in my direction. I wouldn’t be moving a
nywhere—let alone dancing—for a while. I’d gotten this pink phulkari suit tailored for an evening of cute selfies on the dance floor with Jeevan and Roop. Busting my ankle in a pair of far-too-tall heels was just my luck, though. I made a mental note to never wear them again.
“You sure you’re good?” Jeevan called over the deafening bass of a Jasmine Sandlas song. He passed me a ziplock bag full of ice cubes that he’d gathered at the bar, a dose of motherly worry on his face.
Roop came up behind him, impatiently batting her falsies. “Sahaara, you’re cool, right?” Like me, she hadn’t had plans to sit around all night. She’d been gushing about her shimmery blue lehenga for weeks and wanted to show it off.
“I’m chilling. Pinky swear!” I locked pinkies with Jeevan, proving my point with the unbreakable vow we’d used since fifth grade.
“See, Jeevan? She’s fine,” Roop said.
Sunny, Jeevan’s friend from basketball, hovered beside the two of them, one hand shoved in the pocket of his fitted gray suit jacket and the other stroking his meticulously lined up beard. His gaze absentmindedly drifted between the three of us and the dance floor.
“How ’bout I just chill here for a bit?” Jeevan asked.
“Jeevan, I’m good! Like, honestly and truly! You guys go have fun.”
“You know what?” Sunny said, pulling up a seat beside me. “I’ll stay with Sahaara.”
“You don’t have to—” I began.
“No. Chill. I don’t even wanna dance,” he insisted, waving away Jeevan and Roop. “You two go do your thing.”
Jeevan seemed to relax. “Okay.” He nodded. As Roop led Jeevan to the dance floor, she craned her neck to tell him something, her voice drowned by the ocean of noise that washed over the party. For the stillest second, Jeevan looked back at me. He threw me a reassuring smile before Roop redirected his attention elsewhere.
I took a moment to appreciate the royal-blue pants and black jacket combo I’d styled for him. The last-minute shopping trip to find him a pair of pants long enough to fit his towering frame was a migraine. It was by the divine grace of Le Château’s clearance rack that he wasn’t here in a pair of pants hiked up his calves.
“So,” I said, turning my attention to Sunny and crossing my arms over the table, “you come to these things often?”
“Receptions?” He laughed. “Literally every other weekend. My cousins are always dragging me out to random people’s hall parties. Not gonna lie, though, the food makes it worth it.” He reached for a bread pakora and coated it in a perfect glaze of mango chutney. “How ’bout you?” His almond eyes twinkled through thick lashes, something sharp and intent in his gaze.
“This is my first reception.”
He leaned back in sincere surprise. “You serious? How are you brown?”
“Not a lotta receptions in my family.” I shrugged. “True story: I only met the bride today, but I was hyped. This is like . . . the one thing my mom would let me go out for.”
“Strict parents?”
“Something like that . . .” After reassuring Mom that I’d get dropped off at home before nine thirty p.m. and promising about fifty times that I wouldn’t get into a car with anyone who’d had anything to drink, she finally granted me permission to come to the reception. Her one demand: I had to take her cell phone to the party and respond every time she called or texted. She didn’t inform me, in advance, that I’d get a text every thirty minutes making sure I was still alive.
When I didn’t explain further, Sunny changed the subject. “So . . . speaking of brown anomalies, how the hell are Roop’s parents cool with her bringing a guy to a family reception? Do they know they’re dating?”
I bit into a warm samosa dipped in Heinz ketchup (chutney just didn’t do it for me). “They know they’re dating . . . but my theory is that he’s the tall, polite future son-in-law they’ve always wanted, so they can get away with stuff like this. Roop was telling me her parents are really shitty about that kinda stuff. Like, appearance and caste and all that.”
“Damn. Tall and polite is all it takes, huh? Guess I’m screwed.”
“I think we both are,” I said with the straightest face I could muster before cracking up. Sitting in a suit perfectly tailored to his lean body, Sunny was at least a head taller than me, but everyone was short next to Jeevan. “Thanks for joining me at the loser table. Glad to have some company at this very exciting pity party.”
“I wasn’t tryna be a community hero.” He grinned, warmth simmering in his dark eyes as he surveyed me. “Just so happens that I’m not much of a dancer. I would’ve happily sprained my ankle on your behalf.”
“Kidhaaaan?!” a voice called from behind me and I turned around to see Mani Sidhu—a guy from my eleventh-grade bio class and one of Roop’s cousins—head toward us with two shots in hand. “What you doin’ here, bro?”
“Roop invited me?” Like lava cooling to rock, Sunny’s demeanor shifted as Mani took a seat next to him.
“Relax, I didn’t know you guys were chill like that. Here, have a drink and stop acting all bitchy.” He placed a shot in front of Sunny and knocked back his own. Although Mani had the same corny-ass lines running through his fade that he did at the end of eleventh grade, he looked distinctly different. Like he’d spent every moment of summer at the gym.
“I’m good.” Sunny carefully returned Mani’s shot. “You enjoy yourself.”
Mani’s vodka-reddened eyes roved between me and Sunny, calculating. “Oh, shit. I’m interrupting, aren’t I?”
“Nooo!” Sunny groaned, but it was already too late.
“My bad, my bad.” Mani patted him on the shoulder with a knowing look and stood just as quickly as he’d sat down. “You do your thing, bro.”
Sunny looked like he could’ve punched him in the head as he sauntered off to the buffet.
Do not go red. Play it cool, woman. “Nice friend you’ve got there.”
“He’s—ugh—I’m sorry. Ignore him, please.” Sunny, an image of unperturbable nonchalance every time I’d encountered him at school, had suddenly gone even redder than me.
I looked away to see the newly wedded bride tap the mic on the podium, her gold sari sparkling. The music melted but boisterous chatter from the tables persisted until the lights dimmed.
Beneath a whisper of light, Sunny’s eyes were still warm, electric. “You’re good,” I murmured into his ear. “Don’t stress.”
just before i left the party
sunny placed a feather-light hand
on my shoulder and leaned in close
to ask for my number
add me on instagram
i said
smooth as a fresh skating rink
(although my stomach was in knots)
god, i needed a cell phone.
grade twelve
sunny skipped basketball practice to sit with me
in the back field between the portable classrooms
he picked dandelions from the sparse grass
and threw them aside
as he asked me about my day
and my favorite painters
and the thoughts that filled my daydreams
and why it was that i read so much rumi
somehow
whenever i looked away
i could still feel his eyes
peeking out from beneath the rim
of that purple raptors hat
warming the nape of my neck
flushing my cheeks red
planting wildflower seeds
beneath my chest
halloween
There were moments when no world existed beyond the edges of my canvas. Graceful hours when rhythmic brushstrokes glided color effortlessly against woven fabric. When cyan pigment danced into iridescent violet, and it would also wash over my sweaty palms, my racing heart. Sometimes, my chest went lavender as I painted, the burnt umber of my anxiety only an under-layer beneath the masterpiece of my body.
Unfortunately, thi
s was not one of those times.
Colors were only soothing so far as the images they gathered into. Mr. Kim had asked for an “honest self-portrait.” Of course, he wasn’t just looking for an ultrarealistic oil painting of my face. He wanted nuance. He wanted metaphor. He wanted every goose-bump-raising and gorgeous symbol I could conjure to explain who I was.
So much fun when my identity was a question mark.
I peered from the reference pictures of me and Mom to the Frankenstein face on my canvas ready for paint. With my pointed jaw and sharp cheekbones, one half of the face was distinctly me. The other half was Mom. Our two faces fused together in a strange symphony, our differences jarring. Although our moon eyes and puffy noses were nearly identical, her round chin was my polar opposite. My end of the smile reached deep into my left dimple, unapologetic and loud. Hers was thinner. Gentle and smirkish, as it was in real life. When Mom smiled, it was always as if she was reining it in.
“All right, wonderful people!” Mr. Kim called. “Fifteen more minutes of independent project time and then we come together.” He placed a stack of red crinkle paper in its corresponding cubby. The rainbow-colored shelves were filled with paper, cloth, and recycled objects that could, somehow, be worked into our art. In Mr. Kim’s words, the wall was an altar for creative worship. We were to seek its gifts with gratitude and leave it pristine and tidy.
Marisol’s emerald eyes peeked over from behind their canvas. “How goes it?”
“All right,” I mumbled, dabbing my Forsythia Yellow paint with a touch of Eggshell to find the perfect shade of sunlight. “We’ll see what happens when I add color. How ’bout your painting?”