The very nature of ‘belonging’ to a caste paradoxically alienates and isolates me, even though this alienation is something I
wilfully choose

From that day forth, as I progressed on through the rest of primary and into secondary, my sense of unbelonging dissipated

Grief is a matter of space. Distance is death.

I oscillate back and forth like a thurible. Weighing the cultural capital of her belonging against my own perceptions of morality.