All of eleven or twelve
He spends his day weighing
grains of rice
pretending it was a game
but sometimes it’s not as easy His eyes are red with boredom
His youthful joy and genius
being spent on cigarette maths,
memorizing different juice brands
and getting yelled at for being
distracted, overwhelmed, imperfect, lost in thought
in other words, a kid
I grab at a packet of chips without a second thought
Twisting at the threads of my laughable anxieties
“The red ones are better, for just ten rupees more
For you it is nothing. Oh, but you don’t care.”
I stare at him. Something in me turns to lead and can’t move
I’m transfixed by his unplanned moment of wisdom
I want to peel him away from this sunny, metallic shed
and launch him into the air like a rocket, a beam, an orbiting star
I want him to rise and grow and become himself
and I want him to laugh as he looks back
at distant, hazy memories of hopeless afternoons
and exclaim that it was a close call