Sora Anindya

Sora Anindya (they/dia) is a Banjarese-Javanese disabled nonbinary writer and poet from Indonesia. They began writing to cope with their jiwaraga (soulbody) pains. Common themes in their work include queerness, Banjar language and culture, and disability. Aside from writing, they are also busy building, loving, and queering their independent feminist-queer online bookstore, Kavita Books.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

Kaluarga, Kulawarga, I’m Coming Out

Dear my family, mimi, pipih, dede,

who had arranged this cradle I call home,

Dear my mother’s side of the family, nenek, both of my tante,

who took a flight from Banjar after I got hospitalized,

Dear my father’s side of the family, tante, two of my adek,

who left the comfort of eyang’s old pendopo to reside in a foreign land,

Dear budhe-pakdhe, tante-om, yangti-yangkung, nini-kai, eyang-eyang of yangti-yangkung,

who had been buried long before a doctor assigned me as female,

died a thousand long and painful deaths,

and resurrected as a queer,

Please allow me to come out as nonbinary,

also known as Other or Custom or Prefer not to say,

also known as the infinity of decimals,

a string of numbers behind the comma between zero and one,

also known as cavalry with pink ponies,

conquerors of the Holy Kingdom of Gender Stereotype,

also known as the weather forecast in October,

sweaty downpour & shivery heat,

also known as red, yellow, and blue paint,

mixed recklessly on the artist’s palette,

also known as your anak, your kakak, your cucu,

your keponakan, your sepupu, your cicit.

Nurse Station

Urang Banjar would watch over me
when a healthcare worker asks,
"How much do you weigh?"
and then I reply, full honesty,
"90 kilograms."
thinking it's a necessary step
in basic medical check-ups.

Urang Banjar would say bungul,
when a healthcare worker exclaims,
"You're a jumbo size!"
like you're a pack of Indomie
to a starving college student
spending the night at Warmindo.

Urang Banjar would say bungul banar,
then bemamai to express extra rage,
when a healthcare worker realizes
you don't give a flying fuck about
a man's thoughts on a disabled fat queer's body,
so a healthcare worker parrots louder,
"You're a jumbo size!"

Urang Banjar stare at you in silence
because urang Banjar know grace
and respect despite the urge to say bungul
to good-for-nothing men.
We'll talk about you on the car ride home, though,
"Inya tu lakian kada baakal!"
we say as we laugh our loud mouths off,
mouths that only stop chattering
when they munch on kue cucur.

RESIST/REST-IST

when i say disability
i mean this ability
to beat and breathe
in a world that tries to kill me—
we do not know the root cause
of your illness & the national
health insurance is unable
to cover your hospital bills &
i work with 20 patients a day,
i do not have time to assist you
with physical therapy & you need
to lose weight. exercise. you can walk,
you are just not trying hard enough
& no wheelchair? has your body
stopped hurting?

when i say disability
i mean this ability
to create a heaven while aching in bed
a bed of blanket seas
pillow lands
plush mountains
that welcomes my crip body
into its soft embrace.
from heaven i have written mad poems
& turned the course of time backward,
forward, sideward & felt the crashes and
collisions between stars in the galaxy
of my spine & lulled cerberus to sleep,
singing nina bobo into his six ears.

when i say disability
i mean this ability
to create my own definition of resistance.

when i say disability
i mean this ability
to resist ableist expectations through rest.