A DROP OF MY SEA

A long time ago I owned a luscious garden From where I could go To the house of stones which never got hardened I could walk on them like dust on cotton I could bathe in the river Sing in the medow Dance in the forest Watch the sky glow A long long time ago... My garden was a retreat A retreat for my brain With Jasmines smelling Roses blooming Bogainvillea, pink, white and yellow Lilies singing to my nose a song of repose And tonight I sing to thee the song that flutters in my belly a fire that ignited me in Delhi and burnt my garden I sit alone in my deserted garden dunking my head in my legs think of you and your sweet smelling air much sweeter than my Jasmines My flowers never came back to life because they knew to compete with thee they'll have to blow up the air with a smell that now intoxicates me the weeds in garden are taking over and intoxicating me more They know, I know, the weeds know, t

Image: Ujala Chowdhry In my dupatta, lies a life's full cycle. In my dupatta, lies life's invisible structures. The colour of my dupatta, is important to you. You want it to be white when I lose my precious child. Black or grey, for when I give my sister away. If I wear the wrong dupatta you will strip me off my integrity you will make me change the damned dupatta Till the colour is right Till all my blood flows out from my veins and onto my dupatta it rains, the colour red. In which you'll gladly let me be with a man in bed. And choke me with it When he is dead. My dupatta colours people's imagination If I'm naked underneath People imagine invagination If I'm naked underneath The colour of my dupatta becomes redundant The colour of my skin then raises the heat And I've again been stripped of my integrity. You see me as a whore, fuck me to my skin's core, and tear the dupatta that held

Image: Adrian Pelletier / Unsplash If trees had eyes Where would you hide? If the wind could speak How would you lie? The witnesses of a wedding The witnesses of a marital rape The witnesses of a funeral The witnesses of an ending They stand tall And blindly witness it all A decade may pass or a century The tress live with it all The winds carry it all Forever in space...

Image:  Birmingham Museums Trust / Unsplash The confinement of your embrace reminds me of her confinement, in her “home.” Not because of lethargy but because of shame. The shame confined her to her restricted refuge. She became a slave, after becoming a refugee. The slave to her short-sighted desire and to the society’s cruel manner. She could go out, but the shame… The shame arising from the mundane She was a beautiful and a delicate dame but her face told a story, which wasn't the same. She didn't look like a human! She didn't look like other animals! Her face shouted the wrath it sustained. From being proud, carefree, and happy, she became just a dame full of shame. She couldn’t go out of her “kin," to even buy a pack of sanitary napkins. She couldn’t buy her child a dress and the child couldn’t kiss and cress  the shamed mother. The shame belongs to

Petroglyph left by early Native Americans.  Rock Art - Wild Horse Canyon [San Raphael Swell, Utah] - Vinceable91 Hearts from four contrasting corners connected at the centre. We grew to love the city and its delicacies,  but not its people. We learnt our way around but always found our soul attached to the ground. We plucked it together and reached a new high of life. And there we were, driving on the well-lit city roads, flying inside our hot-box, calm and quiet. Then, we flew into a dream painted by Pink Floyd, delivered by the boom-box, turning that tiny reunion into a  “concert on wheels.” There is something about legitimacy, that creates intimacy. And there is something about piracy, that creates animosity. Legitimacy is fair, for an artist, like a mother’s care. On the other hand, it’s a scare for a kind human pair. Us monkeys, don’t need a bill to t

Our saviour subject to his parents at Nazareth by John Rogers Herbert - Victorian Web Why do I have to lie? Why not? Will they believe your truth? They won't, they can't  But I wish they could What a waste of wish, on a thought that is childish? They played an immense role, at-least till you were eighteen. But in your life, like in the movies, their short appearance is over, and now, you lead it till the 'the end.' But they are my DNAs, Well, so is our African mother. and have been with me in all the chilly Januarys  and the sunny Mays. Hey, now you are mixing the two! The facts of life and the vulnerable you. How can I let them go? Who said you have to? You did! Really, did I? My apologies, then. And we should start again. When you were a child You were innocent and wild So much to learn, so much to find The truth of your life which is unique like your DNA You are theirs,