All in by Carolene Kurien

South South

South South

SWWIM Every Day
by Carolene Kurien

by Carolene Kurien



Existence is……fine
I’m unemployed and/or a slut
Take your pick
Baby hairs are the new micro bangs
Micro bangs are the new micro bangs
I’m a woman and I have many friends
I’m a woman and I’m medium-charming
According to the WikiHow page on How to Disappear Completely
You’ll be held responsible for your search party fees
If anyone ends up finding you
Ok
If you were to disappear would you see the gates first
Or the other side of heaven no one talks about
I am mired in modest misery; I dream of neon, veils, Blue, Sandy
Ride the mechanical bull until broken arm, ride, ride, touch me
Making mistakes is a birthright even God won’t interfere with
We’re going south south, every which way
Homestead, Delray, Tito’s, Dora’s
I am sick and I am dying
I’m an entrail ground to nothing
Amma, Appa, this, that
Everything that happens
Is just another thing that happens

____________________________________________________________


Carolene Kurien is a Malayali-American poet from South Florida. Her work has garnered support and recognition from MacDowell, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops, the Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowship, and Poetry Society UK. A Tennessee Williams Scholar in Poetry for the 2025 Sewanee Writers' Conference, she has poems published or forthcoming in Poetry London, RHINO, Sixth Finch, The Cincinnati Review, Southeast Review, and elsewhere. You can learn more at carolenekurien.com.

_____________________________________________________________________________

This week, SWWIM and Matwaala are coming together to celebrate women writers of South Asian heritage with a week of poetry and a SWWIM x Matwaala writing residency and reading at The Betsy-South Beach featuring visiting writer Nina Sudhakar and local writer Carolene Kurien. (The reading will take place on September 11 at 7:00 pm. Please join us in person or via Instagram Live or Facebook Live!)

Matwaala was launched in 2015 to increase the visibility of diasporic South Asian poets (from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Afghanistan) in the mainstream American literary landscape. The name Matwaala in a transferred sense suggests the intoxication of poetic creativity. Matwaala showcases the diversity within the South Asian community—and within the Indo-American community.

A note from Matwaala: Matwaala, the South Asian Diaspora Poetry Collective, is honored to join hands with SWWIM in celebrating a week of South Asian poetry that celebrates Matwaala’s tenth anniversary. A thoughtfully curated selection of women poets offer us a constellation of rich poetry this week. Together with SWWIM, we affirm poetry’s power to bridge distances, and amplify voices.

Sweetheart

SWWIM Every Day
by Carolene Kurien

by Carolene Kurien



Oiled legs pile on top of one another,
glistening in the afternoon light.
This isn’t an orgy: it’s a feast of frog.
Appa fries and stacks them like meditation
rocks on the cooling rack. I tell the toad
watching from the backyard you’re safe, your poison
is your grace as I jenga one out from the heap.
The taste of second-hand fly murder
is pleasant to me. If I had a long, sticky tongue,
I’d trap horrible things: rich people &
bad weather. Consume everything you hate,
that’s what Amma should have told me before
I left for school. Instead I let that girl spit in my face,
as sweethearts do.

______________________________________________________________________


Carolene Kurien is a Malayali-American poet from South Florida. She received her MFA from the University of Miami, where she was a James Michener fellow. A Tin House alum, she has been published in Salt Hill, Hobart After Dark, and Two Serious Ladies, and she has poems forthcoming in Redivider and the South Florida Poetry Journal.