Cultural Debt Paid In Full
written by: Ankita Gupta
There’s a grey in my black,
an immigrant in my land.
I cross eyes with the stranger
it carries the color of lost memory
upon dyed hands.
I ask Grandma for a hair oil massage.
I say I don’t want to lose the roots.
I don’t want to not remember
even if the story lasted
only a moment,
I want all parts
to remain black.
Then, she shows her whites.
And I can’t find a single black.
She talks of life
as a womb
feeding silence
into traditions.
She talks of grief,
its attachment to life
like an uncut umbilical cord.
She talks
of circular paths, a cycle
that never parks on stand.
I remember you.
Your hands,
your face in my hands,
your eyes,
the spectacles that blurred truth from your eyes.
I remember
your scratched initials
at the bottom of my coffee mug,
and the flowers
pressed into pages where
the lines were once a dedication,
a holy verse
only my ears could decipher.
But there’s a grey
in my black.
I cross eyes with the stranger.
I cut the strand.
The scissors sound like betrayal.
Cultural debt,
paid in full.
And I remember
only half of it.
- Cultural Debt Paid In Full - June 26, 2025
