before you begin, i should warn you
we come from different galaxies
you haven't seen me at crossroads, my toes
burying deep into the hotsand as my head
swells up ready to burst and balloon up into the air.
you couldn't stomach the blood i bleed on my bed
even as i chew on nightmares for breakfast,
clutch the bedpost and darenotunhook my grip
the reality's slipping underneath with
memories closing in
i can cut your throats to show you
what red smells like, the blood will
then not
make you retch
nail your tongues that carelessly lick my wounds
with half-chewed words. no,
you haven't yet seen this glorious
mistake
the earth bore out,
nor will you ever witness such colossal depths
in your safe cocooned happilyeverafter
lives.
my poetry won't please you, my words
won't be the ones you'd listen to on lazy sunday afternoons,
i did not learn this goddamn language to wish you
sweet-dreams
they will pull you down from your high towers, and boy,
they are the fall when your dreams jolt you, know–
they will leave you splattered all over my pavement
like dissected frogs, and
i won't bother covering up. i won't
dress you,
my mothers did not raise me to nurse men that happen my way
what will it take for you to see, i shall claw your eyes out–
you wear them like buttons anyway!
i will not stop midway,
this roadblock, these lanes, tree-lined avenues, not a
sightseeing landscape i will dig until
the rocks lie upturned and
the brown sand burns your eyes so used
to seeing sepia
and pink tinted postcard lives. my body will drill its way up
like an earthworm squiggling up your
dining table,
cream white napkins, frosted cakes, and
neatly carved people,
i will crawl further up your face and bite
those pleasantries off of you. the
stories i tell you
will be what your nightmares are made of. my presence
an eyesore, my words will scorch your
tongue, and
you will fidget in your ice-cold chair, and i will still speak of it.
speak of it all until it
echoes in your grave, until the rivers
carry it and the leaves rustle to it. i will still speak of it
to the stones, your bones and see you
lie
stone cold and still.
you should know by now
i am half-beast, meant to hunt your
rats of privilege
you have gotten used to living with
for years. if you think i am civilized,
think again- i have learnt early
civilization translates to taming, you cannot
trap me inside of it. boy,
by the time you were learning to tie
your shoe lace,
we were learning to cover up our knees.
you tell me now, 'make love not war', and i could think of a thousand tales
to show you how they are one and the same.
the land where i come from blood runs brown
and bruised. we are not soaked in
turmeric
like your legends believe; we're
baptized
in our own blood. grit and soil adorn
my women
clenching beedi between yellowing
teeth even
when rounded fists thrust our stories
back into our throats, we spit-
we spit out saliva mixed with war and lust
and blood and semen our mouths
and minds could not un-taste. i know
they were all warriors before me, those women,
we would not have survived otherwise.
so when you come by me, you should know
i will be a wilderness
you will lose yourself in, a mess
you will get entangled in. enjoy
sinking in
for a bit until you find yourself neck deep in chaos, revel in here
as much as you want to,
live inside my body as much as you want to,
peep into that well of a mind, take a
sip of
my heart, but do not for once
try to overwrite me in your own
tongues, i will pluck you
like a tick and blow you to the
breeze; keep your knapsack packed.
because at nights the tears, the blood and hair and all of me
you did not want to see become mine
again. all the stories of
heartache and cries will echo into my own ears
even before my lips stop quivering.
they are mercilessly mine and mine. alone.
and you cannot purge me into a cleaner mould.
you will downsize me to fit in your brain. boy, i am only meant for your
heart, you never learn that. nobody
ever learns that.
no, i will not bite into that equality chip you offer. i know my
legs will forever stretch beyond your bed. and i know also
you are no Robinhood to chop them off.
i am a glass shard of a million galaxies, the
memory of a billion wounds, my tongue will cut you, again and
again and again. and one more time if need be. because silences
are our godmothers' softened breasts we have snuggled ourselves in
for too long. and outgrown from way
longer. and if
you still try to fit me in your brain box, know that i am a shape-shifter
i run faster than quicksilver. my
words in your ears
would be forever the distant hum of
nightcreatures
you mistake for silence. now, you too
shall leave.
well go now, unlearn me like your every yesterday
– i am a dilapidated house you shall not stay in
