How is it that we hurt the people we love the most?

The moment I said it I wanted to take it back

But words take up a life of its own

It hung heavy in the air between us,

Poisoning everything in its path.

How easy it was to wound, to hurt,

A part of me had wanted some payback

for what you had told me the other day,

for all the all years you kept telling me

what was good for me, who wasn't good for me

And for your concern which I tend to see

as a judgement on my choices, on my life

So I lashed back with the only

weapon I had, but I see how childish that

was of me, because really, I do love you very much

And I am older now, not a sixteen year old

rebel-without-a-cause, and you are older too

And I should have been more considerate

Instead I had caused you pain

And I suddenly saw the world from your eyes

The fear that your children are slipping away from you,

But I didn't know how to fix it, you see

You had retreated, I didn't know how to draw you out

And the day dragged on with this pointless

 hurting, with our swollen hearts painful to bear.

How is it that we hurt the people we love the most?

You asked me to write a happy one

You asked me to write a happy one,
 And I did think of one yesterday
On my way back from Loktak,
And there was so much beauty to be
grateful for- the worn-out boat docked
at the shore where I wanted to fall asleep in,
the cheerfully yellowing fields.
But the words got lost
in last night's sleep.
When I woke up, the bitterness returned
I guess I just can't fathom the world around me
I am home after so many years
and it breaks my heart daily
To see so much beauty smeared
by so much rottenness.
History hasn't been kind to us, you see
This country hasn't spared a thought for us
and democracy has lost all its meaning
As for myself, I am railing against
the idea of merely following
a life that has been laid out for me.
I fear of becoming just like everyone else,
cocooned in cynicism, to be content with tokens.
Maybe it is hard for you to even comprehend
how looking non-Indian can affect my life.
In some ways,my life was rigged against
my favour from the start.

In my stories

In my stories, the girls I write about

don't win in life, they are shunned, feared

and hated, they live in the margins 

they are the witches parents warn about

In my stories, these girls live a life

I don't have the courage to claim

They talk back, they scream, they shout

They hurl things at people who

are always telling them they are wrong

They laugh recklessly and often

They drink and smoke in the backyard

They let their garden grow wild

In my stories, I give them a house

If I feel generous, a trip to the beach

Where they can run wild

and sleep on the sandy shores

But I don't let them win at life,

Sometimes they miss their family 

who have disinherited them,

At times they wish they had a shoulder to cry on

Sometimes they think of ending their lives

A few times, they do.

In my stories, my girls live a

life of protest, and isn't that something too?