Just a body...

As a mother you revere me, but
only in public, on the roads,
where everyone gets to see me
observe closely, no one does
for that would expose gashes
and cuts from yesterday's blows
expected to deck up as a doll
with make up hiding my scars

this is a society I am born into
 celebrated outdoors and
destroyed indoors.
  with children watching me hit
watching me raped without regret
watching me cook with swollen eyes
puffing into a stove to make it burn
the food, my throat, my lungs, my world

how do you survive, no one asks
I do not even have a name I can relate to
not even seen as an independent soul
my body has been vandalized
my soul has been silenced
my eyes are listless
my womb burns, brighter than the brightest flame
only there is no light here, just blood splattered on the bed

how do I live, some one asks
why do I live is what i am figuring out
then it strikes, if not for the womb,
my life would not make any sense
my mind is what society seeks to crush
those blows on my body are etched as warnings to others
to keep mum and service the phallus is my sole role
my tongue needs to be pulled out
before it can utter words that would shock

I need to be maimed before I strike out
my strength needs to ebb lest I lash out

frail mother, frail daughter
is not some freak of nature
its emblematic of deprivation
starvation, its an abomination
cursed by the same family which brings her to this world
accidentally off course,
who would want a daughter
someone who is condemned to slavery
since the moment she can blink

a world where you can buy me, trade in me,
surrogate me, prostitute me, sell me for my organs
treat me like a walking carcass, ready to feed off me
but then I am also Ganga, Yamuna, Kosi, Narmada
Kali, Sita, Draupadi....several names
yet I remain nameless, faceless
I am but a body
servicing a debauched society...

Crucified....

men are afraid of any woman who makes poetry and dangerous portents
 unable to predict when, for what and for whom she will open her mouth
unable to stitch up her lips,
 they silence her sometimes in the womb,
sometimes through education and mostly through religion

she was an outcast who had the makings of a fiery orator
 who could some sane day run for parliament but
 how could the brahmin elite allow a woman
who speaks or writes amidst them,
 that would be blasphemy
so a nail was driven through her head and
 her coffin set adrift on a wailing river

 she was black and blood thirsty,
so even kali found herself shut in a shrine

 the others who never spoke up
were simply locked up
in homes with families they did not know
with a man they never saw before
expected to remain and breed like cattle
their existence a mere footnote
their language stolen from their throats
 their identities snatched to render them forever dependent.

 crucified to maintain an order
 which ensured they remained forever smothered.
 burdened with the ordained duty to maintain continuity
 they were strangled with a ring, a yellow thread
and sometimes simply stolen from distant lands
 from mothers who would never see their daughters,
sold to debauched desires they would be called whores.