Nirmala-Nataraj

Diary

March 1, 2023
The Him

I think he might be the one who’s going to save me. I’m 29 years old and I have shit for brains, apparently. Or I just drank all the Top 40s Kool-Aid that lulled me into closing my eyes, letting my long eyelashes fan against my cheeks as the shadow of him sprawled out over […]

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February 22, 2023
My Friend Slobodan

My most recent creative project is a slender book called The Three Jewels. I didn’t write it in order to heavily market it, but to offer it to my dear friend, Slobodan Dan Paich—a brilliant visual artist who also helmed a cross-cultural arts initiative known as the Artship Ensemble, whose mission is to offer broad […]

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February 12, 2023
New New Year’s Resolutions

It’s true that anything can be a weapon And anything can be an unlined face  Turned up to face the waterspout of a clear sky, Of an unclouded Sun. Anything can be beauty. I want to write about mold in the sink And the sadness that allowed it to bloom. I want to write about […]

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February 3, 2023
What I Wish I’d Said Instead

Resist the urge to check your emails. Even more, to answer. Let the water cistern remain unfilled As the shower emanates sulfur from the well water And you bathe in the essence of the primeval. The foam from your fancy shower gel Will calcify into a dark film in the porcelain tub— Let it;  this […]

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August 3, 2021
Laughter Unlocks a Door That Invites Us Into Living

It’s the Fool card I select, over and over, every time I get tired of the residue of tea leaves at the bottom of my cup. Tired of swirling the detritus to sculpt it into a shape that approximates meaning and familiarity. Into a clear answer that inhales and exhales within the murk. I don’t […]

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July 1, 2021
After Alcohol

I understand that some part of my reluctance to see my good friends yesterday had more to do with my fear of how others, even those who say they love me, will perceive me than the reality of what I will actually experience. It often goes this way: I end up having a wonderful time, […]

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June 2, 2021
Midnight Stroll

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. –Robert Frost I remember the poet’s words as the moonlight falls on the path, lighting up the plumes of mist that seem to swallow the trees like pale, ghostly […]

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May 15, 2021
Summer Squall

The thunder is raging and the ink-black sky fills with lightning. I can imagine Jupiter wending through the sea of clouds, his white beard hanging low to the ground, his naked loins poised for warfare, his face contorted into a grimace or a gale of rapturous laughter. We’re on his turf now. We turn the […]

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April 14, 2021
The Great Mystery

I was passing a man in the airport, a beautiful Sikh man with a burgundy turban. I may have declined any sort of alliance with him in my younger years, out of shame, out of annoyance that anyone would choose to be so visible. But I thought about this today. Today, knowing that I am […]

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March 28, 2021
Permission Slip

You have permission to be unabashedly free, yourself, outside the mandates of what is considered acceptable, friendable, fuckable, American enough, enough of anything familiar or familial or similar to it. I give you permission to claim the fact that your ancestors hail from what is considered a shithole country but was the epicenter of civilization […]

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