Mukahang Limbu

Poetry is Useless

dive into a poem naked
to find clothes too loose
to fit;
              a dead grandfather’s batik
              shirt buttoned down a
              sun burnt chest
                                                        your flesh fresh from
                                          the beating of a
                            drunken dog
                                                                                   plaid shorts hugging
                                                                       your waist the way
                                                        you want

                            suck in your ass tight
              and sway to a rhythm,
you click
              your heels – One! Two!

Sometimes a poem is you
dancing alone in your bedroom –
              This poem is you in front of the bathroom mirror
                                                                      with your mother’s tweezer
                                                                                                  plucking all the queer out

we are trying to find our way back
to Poetry.
unpack those boxes,
unfold the pages that
broke our
                        Bodies. we are trying to mend
                        ourselves from textbooks whose
words taking arms
with pitchforks and butcher knives
                        sliced our
                        poetry

Into stone.

MUKAHANG LIMBU is an 18 year old Nepalese writer based in Oxford. He is a 3-time Foyle Young Poet, a SLAMbassador and has won the ‘First Story National’ competition.