When You Forget Who You Are
Dear one,
Keep the kara on your wrist,
even when it clinks too loud in classrooms
and makes you feel like you don’t belong.
It is not just steel—
it is a circle that says you are never alone,
even on the days you feel most invisible.
Like the day you sat in the back row,
your lunch still warm in foil—roti with mango achaar—
while theirs came in paper bags with string cheese and Oreos.
No one said anything,
but you still folded the roti smaller,
hoping the smell wouldn’t give you away.
When your voice shakes,
remember the sound of morning paath
coming from behind your parents’ door—
the way it wraps around the house
like smoke, like a lullaby in reverse.
You didn’t need to understand the words
for them to understand you.
Say thank you
to the warmth of parshad,
to the sweetness that sticks to your fingers
long after the prayer has ended.
Say thank you to the weight of your Nani’s chunni
as she placed it on your head,
her touch saying more than any English word could.
You will want to leave parts of yourself behind.
Maybe your name, maybe your hair,
maybe the way you fold your hands
when you walk into a Gurudwara
and worry someone’s watching.
Maybe even the little notebook you kept hidden,
where you wrote your name over and over
in bubble letters,
trying to make it smaller, more American,
less “too much.”
But soft things survive too.
Your tears come from people
who crossed borders and buried their homes,
but still sang bedtime shabads at night.
Write your name in Gurmukhi,
even if your pen hesitates at every curve.
Even if no one else can read it.
It is still yours.
And that matters.
Let your hands smell like cardamom and flour,
your fingers stained orange from peeling haldi
with a butter knife on a steel plate—
the way you used to, sitting cross-legged
on the kitchen floor, humming without realizing.
The radio always too loud. Your braid too tight.
That quiet defiance was also a kind of faith.
Let yourself be touched by the world
and still walk through it whole.
And when it rains,
don’t run.
Let it soak your gutt,
your doubts, your open palms.
Stand still like you’re at the Golden Temple,
where even the sky feels like ardaas
falling soft over you,
a whisper that says:
you never had to be anything else
but this.
Jasmeen Kaur is a student at SUNY Old Westbury studying computer science. She has taken classes in creative writing and poetry writing. Her poetry explores memory, identity, and the natural world through vivid imagery and emotional reflection. She draws inspiration from everyday places and moments of stillness. Her poetry has been shaped by voices like Ada Limón and Ocean Vuong, blending tenderness with strength and clarity.