From one woman to another

But everything is political, Baby
Even your love
Shine a light on it
Shift through the coarse grains of biases
How often do you compromise?
How often does he gets his way
Love is a battlefield
The most crucial one, Baby
If you win,
the rest would follow
Don't believe him when he says it is
silly to fight over it
He has the weight of the patriarchy by his side
It is easy for him to brush it aside
Because he has never had to fight like you, Baby
He doesn't know how it is like to be gagged from birth
He doesn't know how it is like to kick down doors
The world has been shaped by men for
the benifit of men, don't you forget it
He set the rules of family, state, religion
and expects you to take it,
by means of sweet talk or coercion
What will other people say?
has often been asked of you in the course of your life
Right from childhood by your parents
when you were forbidden to play with boys
To neighbourhood gossip when you didn't marry
all through your twenties.
Love is where it starts- the inequality, the cruelty
Don't let love blind you to what is yours
Don't let it make you accept
a vicious mother-in-law, a greedy father-in-law
When love asks too much from you, Baby
You raze it to the ground if you must
Light it on fire and watch it burn.

Ways to heal

To have spent the last months hating
makes it hard to love again
But you start slowly, take tiny steps
You fall in love with the way
sunlight filters through the windows
and makes shadows that shift
You fall in love with the green vines
hanging from your balcony
You watch them whole day,
Today you watched the fields drop by
in the car ride back home
You watched the setting sun,
children hurrying home with their mothers
You watch the world go by,
You would like a potted cactus in your room
and new books, new shelf, a rug
You glance at the news
and fresh wave of anger rises up your throat
You accept it will never really go away
And it is alright, you can live with that
Perhaps that makes you a better person
than those who aren't disconcerted
by the unfairness and the cruelty.
Sometimes you remember the friends
you once had, the ones you loved,
the ones you thought loved you.
Sometimes you weep for your wasted years.
Maybe they were necessary lessons.
Maybe love is a book that you fall asleep reading
And your heart the superpower you always wanted.

It is funny how you love them the most
when you have to let them go.

What good is your beating heart, old friend?

You have come again, my old friend,
announced by torrential tears
Because what good does it do?
What good does anything do anyway?
There are so many more important things to fight for
You have outgrown everyone you have known
In crowds, you feel terribly lonely
All those familiar faces no longer reach you
Yet you aren't willing to make new friends
Because what good does it do really?
You love them and they go away
Or they just turn out to be horrible people anyway
You have had too twisted a life
for them to love you
Your life intersected at the crossings of history and hellfire
You have seen good women fall
Evil men rise
Between home and strange lands,
Between last month and now,
you are filled to the brim with weariness
What good is your beating heart, old friend?