Today is yesterday.
It is the day before yesterday.
And the Monday four months ago.
Today is 14th of February, 2020 when I hold an unnamed flower in my hand and look up a blue blue sky and think I feel a little sad and I don't know why. Is it the curse of an artist or does everyone carry around this unexplained ache
Shoved into the deepest pockets of their bags, hoping it gets unnoticed at the security checks?
Today is October 2016. A strange day with new people I do not understand. Who do not understand me.
Today is November 2018, I laugh and click pictures, bidding goodbye to a new set of strangers who turned into friends.
Today is December 2021, those friends are strangers again.

Today is yesterday
And the day before yesterday.
Today is also the day of my 14th birthday. I am 14, (finally!) feeling so big - I am a year closer to buying all the books I want, on my own, without having to ask for permission.
Today is a winter morning, the sun is saying hi hello hi I haven't seen you in a long time and I say, sorry, but look I'm here now.
Yes, you're here now, the sun echoes and I turn my back to it.
Today is a stormy night, the wind howling and raging and it reminds me of a whip and a cry
And I want to look out of the window but I'm scared
So I sit scrolling through my phone.
Today will pass.
And become...
Today.

Today is the first day of Bohag Bihu and my heart feels warm as I look at my family.
Today is 30 October, 2008 and terror tears at my chest for the first time as I see smoke tainting the skyline of Guwahati.
Today is the day I learn to walk, stumbling but managing to stand upright.
Today is the day I spend a total of twelve minutes drawing straight lines over and over again under the watchful eyes of my art teacher.
Today I stand in front of a mic and recite a poem, wondering if my high school teachers would be proud of me.

Today my oldest friend asks me to read Harry Potter.

Today I stand on the terrace, huddled inside a blanket that trails onto the floor, and look up at a blood moon and proceed to write a poem to a fictional lover.
Today is the last day of high school and I realise people can be cruel and my heart is breaking and I'm sad.
Today I love a boy.
Today I love a girl.
Today I write this poem.
Today I stand in the middle of a thunderstorm, search for a rickshaw and find none and think I'm going to die today.
Today I peel an orange with my cousin and eat it as we sit on my grandmother's verandah. The sun is up and I give it a little wave.

Today is the day I make dinner on my own, in a small empty flat, pouring badly made dal over slightly burnt rice, with an omlette tucked to the side of the plate,
And I feel so alone and small and human
And I wonder, how did I get here?

Wasn't it just yesterday I was 14 and worrying about the next instalment of Percy Jackson?
Wasn't it just yesterday my mother was feeding me with her own hands?
Wait no, all that happened today.
For yesterday is today.
And tomorrow is today.
And every day is today.

See I'm not quite sure how this happens –
These movements,
Places transforming with each blink of my eyes,
People zooming in and out of my life,
The light changing to dark to light to dark to light –
Thinking about it makes me dizzy.
Today, I am dizzy.
Can I sit for a while? Will you wake me up tomorrow? Yes, no, I mean today. Of course;
I know how to measure time
(I attended school today)
It's the untiring spinning of the earth...
Spin spin spin (like a nursery rhyme I sing today!)
But this spinning of the earth makes me dizzy
When I look down at my feet.
So I don't look down at my feet
(Which is a trick I learn when I sit on my first merry go round
Today, 14 years ago).