Missed calls in the night

by Darshita Jain


- after franny choi

The kitchen sink tap has developed a leak. 
It has been four days since. The landlord, not responding. 
I put my biggest pan under the tap every night, replace it every 4 hours. 

An 8 litre non stick pan - tap tap tap dancing - 
choreographed to a chant -  holding what it can 
I use what I collect to cook, to water my plants, to wash my face, before it overflows, 
before it evaporates - Before i go out on a date - gather what i can - 
before they come - reach my glass windows - 

before I learn to walk - fall flat thrice - 
before I feel ‘not good enough’ - 
before someone carves coffee instead of chai in my father’s ancestry - 
calls him dalit / untouchable / uncultured - before he learns the universes in coffee making -
conversations and the world of being better than the other - 

before you learn the backdoor to walking out of conversations , 
one “and how are you” enough to put someone off your scent - 
before they see the tattoos, the red edges under the black indian hair - 
before you learn the bindi is also a hall pass to hindu safety. 

before you learn that earrings are made by hands - 
learn the sound of hands cracking under power - 
learn names for systems invisible to eyes -

 - before every morning you wake up to phone calls asking for help - 
please help us - calls from schools /colleges/ my country
back home/my home/my home / my burning orange home - 
before being here, in this country renders you helpless - 

who do I go to help? I have small hands. Does listening equal to help? 

before I learn to transition into a soft shelled turtle - 
exquisite in outer beauty - emerald geometric shell safeguard for safety - curl up inside -
crawling for safety - underground for years - before I disappear - before we disappear.  

The world keeps burning and the world keeps turning. 
the apocalypse leaks from my kitchen tap. It keeps speaking. In multiple languages. 
shouts and rumbles. so loud we stopped hearing it.


My name is Darshita Jain. I run the programs at Woman Made Gallery and am an international student here from India. I graduated with an MA in New Arts Journalism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2020. I am the co-founder Povera, a spoken word collective in Gujarat India, and currently, write art criticism for the Reader and Newcity in Chicago. I am Quixotic in my idealism, learning to be transparent in my poetry and trying my best to stay alive in the country.

Originally published in the March 2020, in print in F NewsMagazine