Featured Illustration: Hanifa Abdul Hameed

I am told Europe is beautiful in the summer

Indian summers try their best to melt you to the ground.

How shall I compare thy summer’s day to mine?

Our flowers are scorched under the sun

The same sun that shines so benevolently on you

This same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

The heat pierces your skin

As if it’s trying to tear you apart and stitch you back

As white skin tans

We grow darker than the soil we stand on

Our summer yields fruits 

We talk about mangoes like you talk about wine

Preferences call for civil war; my mother reaches for a langrha

As I slice my dussehri in half 

While you are running down the streets of Barcelona

Spring break, summer vacation

We stay inside, too spent to walk

Rising temperatures and rising tempers

We cannot do anything by halves

This world is too much with us

Even within moments of no intention.