Story/Poem text

you are not dead, not gone, just lurking in the corners, like cobwebs. as usual i imagine the worst. i fantasize your death in a repeat loop. what will it be? an accident due to your dangerous jaywalking ways? when we first met at the tim horton’s at bloor and bedford, you asked me what is “jaywalking”? i laughed at your lack of knowledge, you pretty european boy with an indian accent, and a weakness for cricket and bollywood films and gulab jamuns soaked in syrup. i wanted to say how can you not know what jaywalking is, when we jaywalk all the time in india, cars honking, people rushing, no one really dies, it’s all a farce, crossing streets in india, of course, and cows walking with their ribs jutting out (yes, that’s how we treat our holy cows, they live on plastic and garbage, and sometimes, they hold traffic up, and we click photos for our blogs) and here you are in toronto, with your fancy bank job, asking me to go to garba with you next week, even though you lived in manchester since you were seventeen. go back to delhi, pretty boy, i say to you sometimes, and you irritate me by calling me 2g, or second generation, even though you know i wasn’t born here and how much it pisses me off. yes, it’s true that you are way too desi than i am, and i wonder if that is why you stopped calling. but you are not dead, just waiting to die maybe, in my head somewhere, so that i can move on