Aryaman Kakkar's Archive

  My teenage was a minefield of boys and men who thought ‘sixes’ were slurs and ‘cats’ were too. I came  out of this newly furbished closet when I was thirteen, confused. Called brave and stupid in the same  breath, I cursed myself for leaving the comfort of the dark too early.   Until I didn't.   Until I did.   Imagine the moment when a firecracker flies off into the night and bursts into this compass of falling stars  and you come pretty close to what it was like to like boys in an Indian all-boys boarding school. I shot up  in hope, in fear, in terror, and everyone burst away from me like the sparks of a firework too weak to light  up the sky, fizzling away into nothing with everyone leaving me behind. I hung out with the few girls that   were with me and then I was the ant to every boot that stereotyped me into every joke, every side glance  and mean sneer that completely forgot why I hung out with the girls ...

The walls outside my door cry tears for the heat that crashes against their skin, the cold they contain too  afraid to show love for warm hugs in any other way. The rotting bars they are betray the corpse that  grows and sinks in the body of my being.   I am done.   These flying hands and one-night kisses are promises of a different kind: they only last as long as you are  in front of me. With your words as shields and yours eyes hunger pangs for a body I no longer know how  to love. My thigh is flaking skin and I am a poorer Pennywise for it - I have never scared men away rather  called them closer. To touch, to tear, to use like pin pages in a notebook that you give to a friend in secret  when the teacher isn't looking and say, “Here. I know a guy who'll help you relax. Don't worry about him,  he'll do anything you tell him. He's desperate and lonely that way.”  I am done with ASL and role and likes. These funeral pyres of gh...