Shorn

For a Woman's Day special Open Mic poetry night at the Tuning Fork on 6th March, 2017, I chose to versify this article of mine and well, read it.

It’s Woman’s Day! It’s Woman’s Day!

And as a thinking, feeling woman, 

I’m expected to think and feel

(And maybe even dance around a little)

And proclaim my womanhood. 

But today I think I’ll dance a backward dance

Hold a top-down stance

And start at the end of this story

Let me first undress 

Wipe off that lipstick, scrub off that makeup

Maybe cut off all my hair

And the seduction tied to it.

Let me take off my jewellery

The dangle of earrings, the tinkle of bangles

And everything that chains me

To your ideas of beauty. 

Here comes off my saree - pallu, choli and all

And with it the curves, they so famously adorn

I unclasp my bra, and throw it on the floor

And with it these breasts

That hands of men hunger for

Now I take off my panties, and with it my vagina

Shutting shop for all manner

Of pleasure and pain

And finally, watch me

As I rip off that uterus and the expectation

That it will one day produce heirs. 

Naked and shorn of every notion

That makes me a woman, 

I am now ready to celebrate

With just my heart in place. 

Distances - a poem in two parts

{part 1}

{part 2}

Distance is a difficult tongue

hard to learn, like most things after 30

Despite the mispronounced and misunderstood words

I find myself persevering

I take careful notes

of things that convey distance

of things that may lessen them

I find myself measuring the spaces

Between the faithful's forehead

and a prayer mat

Between a teacher's anxiety

and a student's success

Between the change in a schoolboy's pocket

and the samosawalah outside the gates

Between one casual insult

and a well-thought out spite 

Between the mother's breast

and her wailing infant's mouth

Between promises made in good faith

and realities that rendered them false

I learn how to wait

and find ways to ford the distance

between the day we decided it wouldn't work

and today, when we know that nothing else will

Jump

Ten floors down is a bed of flowers

You know they don't seem too far

I can almost smell them up here on the ledge

So sweet, they're almost pungent.

Like love. Everything's like love.

The wind brings crazy things with it

along with the smell of roses..

that teen next door's angry music, 

a hawk with a half-eaten rat,

the noise of neighbours who have loud sex.

Today I'm hoping it'll bring me more

than just its bag of cheap tricks

a little quietude? Perhaps some sleep?

I haven't really slept since you left.

All I do is dangle my feet in this nothingness

Ten floors down is a bed of flowers

I remember you loved looking at them

And that's all I have left of you - a view of the roses

That's all I think I'll keep of you

What's that I hear you say? Jump?