Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 07:30:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: bhaatasari <gajjala+-AT-pitt.edu>


 Over space and time

this moment

	i *refuse* to be read.

the lines of my palm
tell me things
perhaps
	the lines of my jaatakam
		tell me things perhaps

but by you
i *refuse* to be
read
		these alien words
cannot convey
	your desire will
interpret
most definitely

	awry

			[that's not what i *meant*
				damn you!]

i refuse refuse
to be
read

by you!

	Yet i know i must write
		for you

if i am to write
at
all

		to exist at all

my words always thinking of you
and what you will think of me

		but for the moment
	i *refuse* refuse
		REFUSE

to be read
by you

the way you would 
like
to read me

		just because it's easier for
		you
		within your way of thinking and feeling

		to read me
like that.


		oh how i hate you
		for doing this to my
		word

yet i shall come

back

again and again

			hoping to be understood

			Understood as even i sometimes

don't

		hoping to spark just a little
		bit ...

hoping that the signifiers i use
will
slip
and
trip

	your mind

so that what i am trying to signify
gets across to you

			someday?

not always falling within
the 
colonial desire
always
within
the male
desire

			exoticizing myself
			out of habit

habit - formed the day i was born

into what i was born....

where i was born...

			but today

i take pleasure
in refusing
you.


____

Radhika - May 30th, 1997

	
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