You and I,
All of us come from
the same place.
A mother who sees
all of us as one,
A mother who
raises her children to be warriors.
A mother who never sees
any disparity between her children,
irrespective of their orientation
or the color of their skin.
For her, you and I both are her children.
Imagine when you insult her children,
how does that mother feel?
One morning I woke up and tried
to rub the brownness off me,
and it didn’t go away that is when
I realised this is
who I am and
I embraced it
Yes, I am brown like the coffee
that ignites you every morning.
Yes, I am brown like the sizzling brownie your mouth waters for.
Yes, I am brown like the nispero you crave every season
Brown is what
I embrace,
and brown is what
embraces me.
So the next time
you call me ‘brown,’
know that
yes, I am brown,
just like the
earth
under
your
feet,
and I am not
going anywhere.
– brown
About the Poet:
Aditya Tiwari is an Indian poet, writer, storyteller, and one of India’s emerging gay-rights activists known for going beyond the boundaries. Moving to New York in 2016 to pursue a degree in Journalism, Aditya wasn’t satisfied with being bi-cultural and realized that one had to be whole within the self.
A multi-passionate creative starting in 2014 with prose, and embracing poetry in 2017, it was clear when the party left, finding himself among some broken glasses and poetry, that he found his voice. However, you find your voice in inspiration, from within you, describing poetry as breathing fresh air, self-expression, and an extension of his being, that lights his fire.
Aditya raises his voice in alternating hushed and passionate tones of his poetry and asks you to do the same. His writing aims to touch on many different concepts with emotional connectivity through poetry, storytelling, and narrative. He published his first collection of poems, April is Lush, in April 2019.
