[lineate]I marvel at your quivering surface; your skin, a hoopla[/lineate]
[lineate]of zooing climates! You’re a captive[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]of the miasma of your age,[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]the errant plumage, the multifold[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=5]anxieties, the stinks! Little monster,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]it’s time to Dark Continent with me;[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]I’ll get you off[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]to another taxonomy.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]Whatever happens, you’re going to be fine.[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]Revulsion is not an option.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=5]A simple oscillation,[/lineate]
[lineate indent=5]and you’ll be laving it up[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]in a radical hair shirt of cirrus,[/lineate]
[lineate]an exfoliated rose, prickling[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]and scented, strangely empty. Bent[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]on redemption,[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]penitence is your fetish.[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]You are guilty of nothing, scrubbed[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]to the quick.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]You’re smarting and hence alive; you’re alive, so haven’t really been beaten.[/lineate]
[lineate]Remember: the emulsion of alienation is luxurious, friend. I feel it all the time.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]I am painful:[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3].0004 percent parts unknown—[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]one hundred percent glide. I’m so over myself[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]as a form of spiritual butter,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]violent and intentional,[/lineate]
[lineate]an a-ok-style hurricane force,[/lineate]
[lineate]fomenting at the mouth of the host.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]Pour your dirty words and curses,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]into my swirling ear or eye—it’s all a wash, a centuries-worth blur[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]of frothy Geronimos and colloidal frippery, sad and lost,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=3]scumming every coast. Why apologize[/lineate]
[lineate indent=3]for history?[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Now for some new hurt!—[/lineate]
[lineate]A swill a-swallow, non-toxic sparrow, your servant of ever-diminishing returns.[/lineate]
~ Vidhu Aggarwal
Vidhu Aggarwal (aka “Vic Wall”) grew up in the Southern U.S. Her multi-media works in poetry, video, and scholarship are oriented around Bollywood spectacle and science fiction. A Kundiman fellow, she is the founding editor of SPECS, a multi-media journal. Her work is appearing in ‘The Electronic Gurlesque’ (Saturnalia). Her book of poems, ‘The Trouble with Humpdori’ (2016), received the Editor’s Choice Prize from The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective.
Editor’s note: ‘Soap Friend’ first appeared in ‘The Trouble with Humpadori’, (The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, 2016), and is republished here with kind permission from the poet and the publisher.