Sunday 11 June 2017

i wanted to tell you

talk show host, you ask me to stick to
feminism. do not talk about lesbians​, you say,
stick to feminism.
i see feminism is hotcakes now. or do you prefer it be
women's empowerment? 
you've sold women's bodies for years, now
you sell us our rights
you've decided to give us freedom in
installments, a piece of pie we should be
grateful to bite.
i wanted to tell you i cannot see one from the other i cannot
remove it like a slice of tomato from cheese sandwich.
they do not bifurcate like your hypocrisy
and liberalism; the feminism i know is a hot pot mix of
race, gender, sexuality, caste and all of my people's voices
you've hushed in everyday holocaust. i wanted to tell you
i cannot pluck the odd petals out because you
like your flowers clipped. i cannot pit
one woman against another like you want me to,
the way you've done for ages.
weigh one more because she sleeps with
men like you unlike the other who prefers your sister.
i wanted to tell you lesbian women aren't werewolves,
dark sinister beings bent on snubbing
your manhood, burning mankind,
they're not nymphomaniacs you've heard
titillating tales of, or
fantasize and get a hard on when their
bare bodies blaze your computer screen for
sizzling minutes before vanishing
promptly into their mythical worlds.
i wanted to tell you, they're my sisters, my mothers, my grandmothers, my daughters, me,
with our sceptre-willed bones, mottled skin,
flesh and hair weaved into tales,
hearts grazed by terror, blood sucked out, living, breathing,
gasping in this sulphurous void you've created
to please your own sex, build your empires
for progeny on progeny so you can continue
thriving. cockroaches thrive i wanted to tell you,
you live off us, you've lived off us, made our
bodies yours, our minds yours,
our love yours,
our mouths, our tongues, our aeons of lives, and
even our stories of births and deaths
yours.
live off us, emptying sperm after sperm into
all of those wombs you've no right to and
casually call it a Summer wedding at the plaza, and then
tuck us into your attic when we shriek your madness out.
i wanted to tell you your race is doomed the moment
you started seeing​ love
as the hallway to marriage.
i wanted to tell you that we will no longer
cut ourselves to fit in your trash box
you call equality, for
we're not plastic figurine for you to make
legos out of our limbs. i wanted to tell you
anonymous was a woman for hundreds of
years and yet she survived. so go,
take the back seat now, feminism will do
just fine without you, i wanted to tell you

Thursday 4 May 2017

these bleddy women don't have tongues

these bleddy women don't have tongues
their belief they speak is
their​ first illusion

i find my tongue tied to
adam's apple

the bowl he gave
homes a crack
do you hear it drip drip drip...

all our blood
into the sea of silence it is red

"take these words and
barter us back
our wombs, you morons"

those verbs don't work
nor does his adjective
clauses or nouns
proverbs mock us
and some stand dumb at our feet
like his many hapless children

i pick one
out of hunger
and my eyes squint at
the sour grape, i throw it

we learn
the day is never born
in his orchard
we persist
ape, try and ape
play-act
it still bleddy won't.

i watch
two white birds dissolve
into the blue

and orange
swallowing the sun

frustration
rapes our nights, and
the old hag hides behind
her veil of clouds, dumb

and moody,
one of us:
her many daughters

... without language
this moon
has led better lives.

we go about pocketing words
like orange pips
believing we need them...

until someone says,
"but hey, there is no more magic
anywhere.

the trade is treacherous, and
war is rotten.
Let's just spit the orange pips
up his face"

the end will not be flamboyant

the end will not be flamboyant
the night will not gobble me up
the frogs will not sing goodbye
and no rose will be hustled down the lane
the petals would remain fresh untill the vase is changed
as the morning returns
into newer hands and a newer face and a newer sun
the man beside looks tidier than the other.
the bed will be made, the house will be
spread, the walls painted
there will not be a trace of how
you sneaked in
there will be no broken windows,
no twisted doorknobs
not a blotch of red
nor an empty glass of wine with a stain
there won't be anything unsightly, I assure.
just lullaby with the breeze
to the whiteness of my curtains,
and let me fall asleep.

04/05/2017

Wednesday 3 May 2017

my body smells of old age

my body smells of old age
and the odour that wafts through
abandoned towns

but mostly it smells
of just waiting.

my hairline recedes into the sea
swifter than an ebbing tide
and my mind traces the footprints of
senility on a trance.

i gulp a culpable amount of
time my throat could barely allow...
i breathe

filling my lungs with salty hope
i would go into the rabbit hole
and emerge an Alice, but no,

i fall deeper into my own abyss
toes sinking in a quicksand of
memories, groping for

a better hold, the sea awaiting,
i erode, sand, smell, memory and all
in a sea of light, as my skin
becomes​ the green of the sea,
i see

the sea too now awaits
your touch
and the green light smells of
eternity.

(03/05/2017)

Friday 17 February 2017

Oh, I will be mother

My womb is a war ground
witnessing bloodshed
after bloodshed.
My vulva isn’t the one you might call
a sweet pussy; it is
a frothing bloodhound.
If you dare listen to it
Somewhere deep within is an urn that hisses
Voices of dead children.
Do not ask me to bear any. For,

i’ll mother skeletons,
crush them in a mortar and
spread them across this brown land of yours
until all its cracks of hate is filled,
sealed and satiated.
Oh, i will be mother.

i’ll draw with my blood a crow
Or let my lust take shape
of a vulture.
Someone should feed on the corpses
you ceaselessly dump in my yard.
Oh, i will be mother.

i’ll birth wolves
that shred your maps
cutting people, scrape your
last dregs of power, and
tear the tongues of language
Oh, i will be mother.

i’ll bring forth witches
who’d hunt down every hate bone in your body
burn them until it splinters.
And i’ll dance around
as the charred memory of our oppression
goes up in smoke.
Oh, i will be mother.

Sorry i’m not your fertile land
But darling, i’ll be the burial ground for
maggots that prey on
the mangled breasts of my daughters
You leave half-eaten.
Oh, i will be mother.

i’ll pour out lava
Consume men like wildfire
And when all the walls you built,
the lines you drew, the books you writ
crumble to ash,
when this earth no longer remembers words 
that once reeked of
religion, race, colour, caste, creed or sex,
Maybe then 
i’ll spread myself and celebrate 
motherhood.
And this earth, too, will thrive.
Oh, i will definitely be mother.

But until then
Remember, even wildflowers
Do not grow on war grounds.