By Joy Dorai
The scent of ammonia that overpowers urine, decaying food with reservoirs of mold with spores that have a fleece of peach fuzz can’t evoke a theatrical gag. Fragments of memories are displaced in a scenery of poverty and its own rare hybrid of dynamics. An emulation of unfulfilled desires heaped layers of Dollar Tree trinkets and curios sentenced to a lifetime in their cardboard and plastic wrapping, brown liquid searing the rigid form into a flaccid and decaying item. Heavy duty acrylic garbage bags stuffed with frilly dresses, ponchos, and denim from the thrift had stiffened into masses. I learned hoarding and cherishing could be synonymous, sentimentality fused onto compulsion the way wet satin clings to skin. Materialism manifests itself in many forms causing crowded walkways of a hearth turn it into an overgrown labyrinth. Childhood imagination perceives the insects that live chaos akin to fairies, fragile and winged. My hands embittered with empathy at being told to clobber an antennae-bearing friend with the sole of a flip-flop. Opaque and milky fluid seeping out the crevices of broken exoskeleton, pooling out onto the linoleum flooring. The nauseating reverie is aroused when a spoon cracks the caramelized layer of crème brûlée. My limbs grew like pillars, and I heard sayings like, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” The bedroom in my home is alabaster white and empty as a robbed tombstone—the bedding, curtains, and bookshelf gleaming and nearly glacial with a glint of cerulean. I wash my hands so vigorously that skin peels near the nail beds, blooming raw. With a generous heart, I’ve freely donated and thrown out whatever daunts a garish hue, anything with a dominant presence in the ideal liminal space. The martyrdom of filth fronts the resurrection of a paradoxical obsession.
Joy Dorai is a writer and student in Houston, Texas. Dorai’s work explores themes of antiquity, human vulnerability, and the intricate relationships between time and identity. With an innovative approach to form and rhetoric, Dorai’s style aligns with the influences of poets like Clarice Lispector and Louise Glück, who utilize universal symbols and abstract metaphors.
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losing our grip on purpose 