SECOND-GENERATION ANTI-LOVE LETTER
April brings a hundred-degree spring, so I read in the backyard; a book of
love poems you gave me for my birthday last year,
written during some rainless June I’m not old enough
to remember. I didn’t open it for months because
I don’t like looking gift horses in the mouth &
somehow I knew you’d say something I wouldn’t want to
hear, like inscribe sweetheart, don’t prolong your dry spell on
the inside cover. Like tell me I live in the
desert & so it’s stupid to say I need rain. Look, baby, you
told me not to sugarcoat, so in all honesty, I think the book is
awful. I think if I just said tumne khana khaya?
& brought you coffee in the mornings I’d be
more romantic than every one of those poems combined,
but okay, fine, I’ll be your rom-com lover. I’ll be
brown John Cusack with a boombox during the monsoons, wailing
my heart out beneath your second-floor bedroom. Look, baby, you
told me to be honest, so I’ll scratch out your note. I’ll write
LOVE DOESN’T EXIST! on the inside cover instead,
turn into a man so cynical that he writes about
a neverending drought instead of his lover’s hands. You say you’ll
name the sun for me & I think, in which language? In which
season? April turns my head fuzzy so
I tell you to lie in the grass with me. Inke va, my throat is so
dry. What I am trying to say is I love you but
I can’t call you meri jaan. What I am trying to say is that
you should open your windows so you can hear me singing from
ten miles away. What I am trying to say is that
you should drive back down when the storm ends so we can eat
gulab jamun together & try again & try again & try again. What I am trying to say is that
the Tamil word for rain is mazhae & I know I live in the desert but
I need you to repeat it back to me over & over & over. Say absolution. Say starvation.
Say you’ll be the water to my endless thirst, that this time you’ll
play Meg Ryan & we can kiss all weekend even though
we’re both drenched in sweat. Compliment the damp hair on the back of my
neck. My soaked bra, soaked shirt, my thighs sticking to
the deck chair. The way you’re rooted in only one hemisphere: my love.
Meri piya. En kadhale. What I am trying to say is
come back to me when the asphalt season ends. What I am trying to say is
I need you to learn to pronounce my name.
Leela Raj-Sankar (she/her) is an Indian-American high
school freshman from Phoenix, Arizona. Their work has appeared in
Stone of Madness Press, Ex/Post Magazine, and Ghost Heart Lit, among
others. In his spare time, he enjoys drinking far too much iced coffee
and watching bad movies. “Second-Generation Anti-Love Letter” was
edited by August Bronze.