Sappho's Tired Quill.

I had stopped posting here not because I did not have anything to write, but the truth is because I was constantly being stalked by someone who could not respect my boundaries until today when I realized that most people of that gender don’t, and decided to not live my life trying to accommodate their inadequacies. Yes, this is spite. But what isn’t? Spite has been the sole reason for my…

The freedom to choose.

The ability to respond to the unfair constraints and obligations placed on women is in itself a freedom of a kind that is not usually available to women. Women, are only allowed to “react”, to “overreact”, to “protest”, to “challenge the authority”. Who has established this authority? And why do we continue to follow it and let it grow, so much so that even our freedom of choice is…

there are things that you do not know (i assume); like the song i was listening to when you first told me that you liked me back, or the show i was watching the first time i realised i wanted to wake up next to you. like the first poem that i wrote for you long before you loved me, or the way i have a screenshot of the first time you ever called me. there are things that you do not…

The first time I saw you, I wanted to tell you about all the sea shells that I have been collecting from the age of seven. I knew that you loved beaches, and so do I, but I did not know if you came back home with pockets full of sand like I did and while you sat beside me telling me that you were just as tired as I was, I forgot about the sea shells entirely and instead laid on the desk, watching…

Waiting for a taxi in the morning.

The cat sits on the wall Of my self-righteousness With a little more than the knowledge Of my mistakes. She mocks my pride with her own And foreshadows my fall with her darkness Moving swiftly across my path Like I imagine the Serpent to have moved Once cursed by God. The curse here, is me Watching all my worst intentions parade by, A lonely spectator; The cat having left my side.

Funny how I want to write about something – anything at all – as if my life depends on these words. Perhaps, it does. It does, definitely. But the problem, like always, is how to begin writing. I usually never have a problem with beginning something. I am not afraid of the change it brings along, neither am I doubtful of my position before and after starting something new. But something about…

I measure my worth by the ounces of the words I write And this is the only easy way I know, Because the other is hearing the words “I love you” From every single person that I know. I like to believe that my worth is much more than this But the voices in my head tell me otherwise. They remind me of my lies and my secrets And how my body does not fit me. They show me all that I could have…

My mother’s tea tastes as if she can read my mind; For a curious child with paper cut rings on every finger, Her tea was the antidote I needed. At ten, when I sat within the tower of books that I had built, Her tea tasted like the magic potion I read about in one of them. A few years later, when I sat trying to mend my heart After yet another person had broken it, Her tea felt like a warm…

My words don’t come easily to me, but when they do I am reminded of the nightingale’s song. When the night falls, it’s voice finds itself through the moonlit night And causes me to dream of heaven’s own light. What note compares to the one that soothes my aching heart, That holds me when I lay helpless in my longings, like an old friend would? The pangs of loneliness and my demise are one…

Wrote this along with my good friend and one of my favorite poets, Nandana. Do make sure to check out their poetry right here @kaleidoscopes._ This pen that I wield is a double edged sword, that deepens my wounds and impales the devoteewith a penny worth of poetry having no rhyme or meterAnd yet I wonder why everything I writeTurns out sombre like the ashen sky before a storm.This storm brews…

my bitterness has its roots deeper than the Mariana trench and I often find my father watering it, even though he claims to hate gardening.I want to ask him about it but every time I walk up to him he asks me if I remember the time when his students surprised him on his birthday and the truth is I don’t, but I lie and say that I do. I watch as the water hose suddenly disappears and a computer…

a raven’s meal.

break open my cageand let my blood seepinto the crevices of our soul,so deep, the stains lastinglonger than the ones onyour carpet.pick and choose,the best parts of me,what else can you do,to keep your hands clean?the worst is always yet to come,and yet, here you are,an inconvenient lie,a devil’s throwaway,the last one standing,over their own piss and blood.

the last time my skin bled like this(and I felt like this),was when I was four and I’d fallen off my bike,face first onto the cruel asphalt.and though I could feel the pain that shot through my knee right up to my scalp,I couldn’t connect it to the gaping wound I found sitting gloriously on my knee.for me, the pain had nothing to do with the wound but more to do with the hands that could’ve…

the peepal trees rest against each otherwhile the soft wind breathes through their branches,and I find myself wandering into the midst of their afternoon nap,as they look at me, startled, and let out a hefty sigh into the heavens.my feet sink into the forest floor that’s overgrown with moss,the moss, a welcome, yet, a pesky presence, as it finds its way into the mighty trunks of the peepalsBut…

The failure in achieving gender equality lies not in the discrimination of women but in the very fact that our mind races to this, and only this problem, thus proving that our whole perception of gender in itself is wrong. This is where we have failed, in conceptualizing gender equality based on our old conformed ways, and executing it through new, although, equally regressive ways. We cannot…