goa

Artwork by Shruthi Medicherla, Art Team Director and staff artist.

my lover watches the tides swell along the coastline of goa. we pick bright orange, honeysweet mangoes & wade into shallow cerulean water. he smiles at me, once, so that i know he loves me; wants me in this exact moment. i remember, faintly, the house is a ghost ship when i am awake; i am terrified. i remember, faintly, my family has left me; moved across the nation to get away from me. i remember, faintly, the house is haunted when i come back; ghosts of my past in remembrance. i remember, faintly, that goa exists only in my dreams.

"goa" is a piece based off a folktale that was passed down my family and the village we came from in India. It tells a story about how a woman was shunned from her family due to her marrying for love to a man below her caste, escaping Maharashtra and going to the neighboring state, Goa. This piece is an interpolation of that folktale: it takes parts of the folktale and puts a more personal and modern twist on it.

Arushi (Aera) Rege is a queer, chronically in pain, Indian-American poet who simultaneously attends senior year in high school. They tweet occasionally @academic_core and face the perils of instagram @aeranem_26. Their works have been published in Gastropoda Lit, Full House Literary Magazine, fifth wheel press, and more. Their debut chapbook, BROWN GIRL EPIPHANY, is forthcoming with fifth wheel press. You can find their website at arushiaerarege.carrd.co.