Poetry by Inam Martins

Pottery:

Was I made from a broken mould?

I don't like how visible the cracks stretch

From my breasts to my hips

How eroded my feet have become

From trudging as the vessel I am

Hold an accumulation of sorrow and guilt 

For the generations before me

I've emptied out of most of my soil from my journeys

Yet jet black vines coil out of the dirtiest of corners

I cannot even speak as my mouth has betrayed me

Selling out my mother tongue for whitewashed aesthetics.

Each day as I wake, a new shard of me is lying on the floor

It is getting increasingly hard to remember how to put myself back together again

Someone once asked me if I needed help

I declined their pitiful charade

I don't want my pieces stolen.

Kitchen Affairs

Good daughters cleanse

Themselves in the kitchen

Unravel their sorrows through the

Slicing of onion and peppers

Fragranced in oil and spices

They inhale an aromatic amnesia 

To forget which parts ache

Come dinner time 

They are born anew 

Cooked crisp just enough

To retain their vitamins

They nurse their meal quietly

Under everyone's laughter