17 march
i.woke up scared 2:13
i.write not feeling good. was supposed to be at airport at six was with a lover in a bathrobe after having sex in that house. i did not need to go after all i was not comfortable people debating somebody made a joke to climb the queen window the sister was cooking a dish of dhal
i.write a gun to my head worried of dying waken from a dream of dust and gatherings 1943 soondrun pavattan with sticks and stones and bare arms rises to the plantation to ashy chimneys to the brutes
i.am silenced nationalism monumentalises her unhistoricises the shooting the police the men who pointed guns to the workers never held to account
Gitan Djeli is a UK-based Mauritian writer and researcher. She is currently an Art History Fellow under the Indian Ocean Exchanges Program, Harpur College, Binghamton University and the Getty Foundation. Her poems appear in Poetry, adda, Silver Pinion, and Parentheses Journal among others. Her work has been anthologised by Commonwealth Writers.