Debts

By Komal Aandhiwal

Tuck away your inflammable secrets 

between the teeth of strangers. 

They barter with you, the promise of safekeeping, 

a deceit, a seemingly breakeven trade. 

But know well,their mouths are fire, 

and this is a ruthless city that waits in a monstrous hunger 

at your dinner table. So wait.

Drain them down instead, bury them in the masaan, 

that is your womb. 

Don't worry about the new lives, the damage already took place 

when you were born.

Yes, the seed planted in the dirt of your body 

will absorb the torments buried there. 

An undeserving inheritance, 

perhaps the only one. 

You are woman, or what they say,

a flesh wearing equivalent of a eulogy, 

that people pray, God forbid it ever touches another page of history.

Your rusted blood waves backwards, to the sea inside, 

it never knew of shores when she's born, 

chew her bones hard enough, 

so she knows how to kill butterflies in her stomach, 

to make room for the debts she's about to owe. 

When she turns nine, teach her answers to questions that were 

stabbed on your back, so it pains a little less for her. 

When it's a week away from nineteen, pay off your debts, 

smear that blood stained turmeric on her blush and wash them off, 

for the redness of her cheeks should be only from sharm, 

shame that gnaws on her neck, 

long enough to learn to be forever hung, 

not sharm, coyness that adorns when she sings

aavan keh gaye aashiq rang,

aur beet gaye barson.

Teach her how to love, even when she is handed over death in return.

Especially when she is handed over death in return. 

But never commit the crime of teaching her, she can be loved. 

Which is to say, don't ever dare to write a history

that can easily come true. 

By Komal Aandhiwal