Is it too much to ask for? Aren’t you done already? Destroying and striping off of my possession, my own body, my own soul. They ask to tell where it hurts so they can silence me there and then. I don’t need your eyes to look about for me; it will be more than enough if you’ll just take those off me. I am just not of YOU, by YOU or for YOU. I am no goddess, I am no daughter, I am no wife, I am no mother; you have left me nothing. Just let me be me now, for what I was, for who I am and for what I want to be.
Why your jokes have to start on me, why your anger has to end on me, why your sorrow has to be understood by me? Yet I am left misunderstood when I am seen with a guy or coming late from a place or when I am alone or when I am in pain during my periods.
Yes I have been raped, now can I live my life? I have been tauten and trounced in every possible way, in every possible name from Damini to Oksana, to the names unknown and forgotten. I don’t want a name; I don’t want to carry your name either. Declare me dead; declare me extinct for you have left nothing in making us endangered. For I know I’ll find my solace in death.
Why I have been always open for speculation? Why my body has to be questioned? Why my impurity or purity has to be disclosed to everybody? From mother Mary to Sita; Don’t call me god for you have never left, and nor will, that place for us.
You, who want to give me position in society, want to remember me, just remember me in the form of megaliths for that’s the only place where you can’t hurt me any more, but still I am sure you’ll leave your indentations there too.
Is it too much to ask for? Why can’t you just let me be ME?
I am one of you; Pick any face of a woman from the crowd that’s me,
I am one of you who sacrificed entire childhood for parents’ dreams
We, who were gifted reality during the holidays
The ones who knew that coal is a precious commodity
and realized early on that you had to be your own Santa Claus.
WE, who raised younger siblings while watching our parents, morph into slaves,
Eyes told more about us than our mouths ever dared
We were culture, shocked into silence.
We were fed motivation, drive, stress, success for breakfast
otherwise there’d be no lunch or dinner
We were with sharp minds and even sharper tongues
The ones you could never insult, mock, or hurt because they’d perfected the art of
twisting knives into their hearts by their own hands so that pain was only a word.
We were who never got the chance to be kids who were too busy navigating
The middle world between where they are and where they were
Too West for the East,
too East for the West
yet neither of either to themselves.
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