sometimes i stand outside my house and peer in through the windows. if i manage to scramble onto the roof — don't worry, it's safe — i'll look into my bedroom window. it's a fascinating feeling — being an outsider peering into your own life. the world within the walls doesn't seem real but rather something constructed by soldering imagination, aspiration, and desperation into an image we present to ourselves and anyone else who — rather than looking in — waltzes through the f

Written in May 2022 for LTCS 130 — Transnational Feminisms — during my junior year. I signed up for the course to fulfill a graduation requirement. I made a poetry book for the final project instead of writing a paper, drawing from Grace Cho's memoir Tastes Like War and from my own life as a first-generation Indian-American. The "book" has three poems — one about familial pressure and the cost of questioning your own history, one about emotional residue and hidden bruises, an

Written in October 2020 for VIS 41 in college — a sophomore, asked to compile a set of visual influences and write about them. I opened by admitting I don't really connect with art. I have since built a life around it. The closing line surprised me when I wrote it and still does.

There is something strange about loneliness.It creeps up quietly, gives no warning, and leaves a chill when it goes. It’s not the word itself that frightens—it’s the understanding of what it means. It warps the mind and heart, plunging like a knife into every pore. To be lonely is to be present yet apart, to watch life unfold beyond your reach no matter how hard you try to hold on. It is a terrible thing, loneliness—once unleashed, it never stops. Shadows move all around you,

The turmeric stain seeped into the fibers of a white cotton shirt hugging the ridges and hollows of her hourglass frame. It threatened the fragile peace of starch-white against almond skin. The shroud hid the pores of salt and spice and blinded lentil eyes with the stark weight of realism in a surreal world of freedom.

I am more than my culture yet I am nothing more than my culture The British arrived and left But forgot to take their sneers with them The Americans fought and conquered But forgot the people of this land We came We saw And we resigned ourselves to living A lie fabricated Designed to fit snugly A white mask, textbook hidden behind Shaking our heads Yes, no, and something in between

The wooden drum rolled down the hill, enjoying the feeling of the wind against its fibers. Branches brushed past, striking the drum, Creating a melody that resonated with the heartbeat below. Reaching the cliff's edge, the drum paused -- Was the feeling of liftoff worth the plummet to destruction? Resigning itself to the monotony of safety, the barrel froze in place, surveying the sea of lights below. Fibers began to snap and bend as the crate inched its way down the slippery