i am already exposed

My grandmother pressed the worn poetry book into my hands, its spine cracked from decades of reading. "Kannadasan knew," she whispered, her Tamil flowing like familiar music. "That once you see truth, you cannot unsee it." I'd discovered the poet's verses online, shared by strangers who became friends. His words about social injustice burned through my carefully constructed ignorance. There was no returning to comfortable blindness. My family noticed the change—how I questioned traditions, sought deeper meaning. Some disapproved. But others, aunts and cousins, began sharing their own awakakenings. We were exposing ourselves to possibility, to each other's authentic selves. In our kitchen, speaking Tamil over steaming coffee, we found reward in this vulnerable truth: our heritage thrived when we truly saw one another.