I wore a sari that day and it was black
like the cover of a penguin classic
novel with the bottle of red as its pain
while I wasn’t carrying any objects of
Attraction on my body that day I was 7
years old so I played with the Pulu like
a child who my age would play with the
wind like throwing a frisbee from one
end to the other like balloons having
their own secret love affair like
blowing bubbles to mush the air and even
on stage I felt like I was at my
favorite Beach
I had the waves creating my feet my toes
fell the soft touch of the Auroville
sand and the warm hug of an ocean it
felt like the wakeup kiss that my used
to give me on my forehead every day its
marked like the kitchen where she
prepared caramel custard for me like it
was especially like it was my birthday
so I wore a red bindi and tried to look
like MA centrally placed equidistant
between either sides of my forehead like
a red rose in a green garden I almost
felt of myself like the Indian Red
Riding Hood of all times when I looked
at myself in the middle I smiled and
flashed all my teeth together like the
one in the Colgate commercial I even
covered my head with a pallu and left a
little of my hair out just to say that I
wasn’t all bald
I would Chum cos that shone as bright as
jalebis on a festive day that twinkled
like fireflies on a camp night it made
my cheeks blush like roses in a farm and
I ate raspberry candy that day like it
was especially like it was my birthday
but little did I know that older men
liked it another way every day was
I am 14 years older I am 14 years old
sharp your shoulders behind more
confidence I am 14 years old don’t cry
when they pinch you don’t flee when they
grow up you honor and shame and fall in
Fame love and lust and gold and filth
all belong to the same family all belong
to a well-known Society you’ll be famous
someday they say Sartre has an old room
now she is the most wanted amongst all
men
she speaks afraid like tossing words in
thin air and money comes rushing in
money comes rushing in as easily as
blood oozes and pours down at pause and
pause and pause it doesn’t stop there is
no stop
there is no stop but smile when you have
to stick that leg out and don’t forget
the red luscious lipstick oh you look
beautiful you look healthy and fat in
the right places
you look like sugar cubes in a woman’s
jar of a body and you’ll taste even
better better than sugar and those slaps
don’t mind the I love those scars and
marks they’ll only make you stronger so
keep that rage within and remember to
stay wild
every time I am 21 years old a new
father and you mother and a grown-up me
in vol shape in size I am beautiful they
still say I am beautiful they still say
I have learned to smile more genuinely
now my heart races like the kid who
wants to win the race my legs open as
wide as the old gates and I have learned
to sleep in the afternoons now and I
sleep soundly like the calm of a deep
dark dungeon without the brother
Fernando and the noise of the monsters
under my bed no they don’t haunt me
anymore I have learned to tame them I
sleep with them every night well I
didn’t know what a family was but I know
that this is one father loves me every
day he kisses the skin close to my neck
makes ornaments of his hands around my
flesh every Sunday I am beautiful
histone sales
and mother she feeds me with homemade
specials cheese omelets and milk and
sugar cakes I am beautiful she still
says well I have my own room now so I
don’t wear skirts with slits and low
neck tops I don’t kick my leg out and
wait for men to gawk I have my own room
now but I wear a sari today and it is
black like the flying ashes on a gray
tree with a bottle of red like the
stream of blood flowing all the way
while I don’t put out objects of
Attraction on my body out there anymore
they all still come to me anyway
but I am 21 years old and I know that
I believe that we live in this big bad
world but we also have the power to
change it now how do we do that through
fiction and storytelling no one wants to
taste reality right but everyone wants
to believe in and listen to stories so
fiction is just the right intersection
between these two worlds fiction is
nothing but the truth
sold as a blanket of lies to encourage
to empower to help out and black out the
bad guys so my poem is a piece of
fiction it is the true stories that I
have heard and read over time jan 27
only station kiss happened videos and
interviews went viral on social media it
shook my heart twice I couldn’t believe
that this could happen to us the second
half of Jan I was traveling to jeopardy
attend the chaplet request for the first
time I was scared so as a reflex action
I will visited the pharmacies to buy
myself a pepper spray this was my way of
crapping myself up but unfortunately
they were out of stock
but I had to go this was my calling
now geppu literature fast is this place
for dreamers readers and writers
everyone embraces art in their own way
there is a space for conversation
between the writers and people that you
never know you haven’t heard of so for
the first few days I was by myself and I
happened to meet this beautiful woman
who decided to share stories of her life
with me she told me that she was working
with the sex workers in Shalom the topic
shook me she told me about how women
were okay with selling
their flesh on a temporary basis to earn
money the conditions that they had gone
through many of them said this is what
we do but there was still a layer of
fear that surrounded them every time
they spoke to an outsider they didn’t
know what having a choice meant all of
this shook me again
so the problem they faced were one not
knowing acknowledging the fact that they
had a choice to accepting this concept
of choice and three to do something of
this newfound concept of choice but
later sooner or later the brothel owners
and like-minded elders found out about
this and she had to come back to jail
because it wasn’t safe for her to be
there anymore
forget rescuing anyone else I couldn’t
carry the weight of the damage that
these women carried on their bodies
every day only because they were unaware
and didn’t know didn’t have the
knowledge that there was a freedom of
choice that they could accept and imbibe
in their lives two days into the first I
landed up at the jlf bookstore now this
bookstore is a wonderful place there is
no better space than to breathe in the
world of words right and I found this
book river of flesh and other stories
the prostituted women in Indian short
fiction edited by Ruchi Raghava
this book is an anthology of stories
which crosses barriers of regions
religions 12 languages speaking of
speaking about the trouble that the
women have faced the inequalities that
have led them into prostitution the
fears the fears you know wipe that
they’ve had to come out of it the
conditions that were forced upon them
and the remarkable strength with which
they did come out of them at least some
of them through Mordor
that sometimes hope and fortitude while
reading this book I broke down a couple
of times I couldn’t believe that
something like that happened so close to
home and I wanted to tell myself that
it’s okay there are people out there
like the friend I met a jLF who is doing
something about this who was trying to
reach out and save even a few handful
lives but I couldn’t carry the
unbearable weight of what I had heard
what I knew and what was written so I
decided to write about it this was the
best way that I thought I could express
myself so this poem is the idea of this
poem comes from these two experiences it
shook me again to write about it but I
felt the need to voice the voice all
these women out because something had to
be done even in a small way and people
had to know that this was happening
I’ve realized over time that fiction is
the space where I have learned to
embrace lies for the good wouldn’t you
all agree that lying can sometimes be a
good thing only if it can help and save
a few people’s life so poetry and
fiction does that for me to me
repeatedly so this poem is a part of
that and there are storytellers authors
and writers out there who are doing just
the same through the world of fiction I
asked you to read their work listen to
them give it a thought and maybe just
maybe with your help we can embrace the
space and increase it eventually
drastically fiction is the space
nothing but just an exaggerated truth in
a blanket of lace ideas that come out of
experiences wouldn’t everyone agree that
all of us are just living breathing stories at the end of it
like the cover of a penguin classic
novel with the bottle of red as its pain
while I wasn’t carrying any objects of
Attraction on my body that day I was 7
years old so I played with the Pulu like
a child who my age would play with the
wind like throwing a frisbee from one
end to the other like balloons having
their own secret love affair like
blowing bubbles to mush the air and even
on stage I felt like I was at my
favorite Beach
I had the waves creating my feet my toes
fell the soft touch of the Auroville
sand and the warm hug of an ocean it
felt like the wakeup kiss that my used
to give me on my forehead every day its
marked like the kitchen where she
prepared caramel custard for me like it
was especially like it was my birthday
so I wore a red bindi and tried to look
like MA centrally placed equidistant
between either sides of my forehead like
a red rose in a green garden I almost
felt of myself like the Indian Red
Riding Hood of all times when I looked
at myself in the middle I smiled and
flashed all my teeth together like the
one in the Colgate commercial I even
covered my head with a pallu and left a
little of my hair out just to say that I
wasn’t all bald
I would Chum cos that shone as bright as
jalebis on a festive day that twinkled
like fireflies on a camp night it made
my cheeks blush like roses in a farm and
I ate raspberry candy that day like it
was especially like it was my birthday
but little did I know that older men
liked it another way every day was
I am 14 years older I am 14 years old
sharp your shoulders behind more
confidence I am 14 years old don’t cry
when they pinch you don’t flee when they
grow up you honor and shame and fall in
Fame love and lust and gold and filth
all belong to the same family all belong
to a well-known Society you’ll be famous
someday they say Sartre has an old room
now she is the most wanted amongst all
men
she speaks afraid like tossing words in
thin air and money comes rushing in
money comes rushing in as easily as
blood oozes and pours down at pause and
pause and pause it doesn’t stop there is
no stop
there is no stop but smile when you have
to stick that leg out and don’t forget
the red luscious lipstick oh you look
beautiful you look healthy and fat in
the right places
you look like sugar cubes in a woman’s
jar of a body and you’ll taste even
better better than sugar and those slaps
don’t mind the I love those scars and
marks they’ll only make you stronger so
keep that rage within and remember to
stay wild
every time I am 21 years old a new
father and you mother and a grown-up me
in vol shape in size I am beautiful they
still say I am beautiful they still say
I have learned to smile more genuinely
now my heart races like the kid who
wants to win the race my legs open as
wide as the old gates and I have learned
to sleep in the afternoons now and I
sleep soundly like the calm of a deep
dark dungeon without the brother
Fernando and the noise of the monsters
under my bed no they don’t haunt me
anymore I have learned to tame them I
sleep with them every night well I
didn’t know what a family was but I know
that this is one father loves me every
day he kisses the skin close to my neck
makes ornaments of his hands around my
flesh every Sunday I am beautiful
histone sales
and mother she feeds me with homemade
specials cheese omelets and milk and
sugar cakes I am beautiful she still
says well I have my own room now so I
don’t wear skirts with slits and low
neck tops I don’t kick my leg out and
wait for men to gawk I have my own room
now but I wear a sari today and it is
black like the flying ashes on a gray
tree with a bottle of red like the
stream of blood flowing all the way
while I don’t put out objects of
Attraction on my body out there anymore
they all still come to me anyway
but I am 21 years old and I know that
I believe that we live in this big bad
world but we also have the power to
change it now how do we do that through
fiction and storytelling no one wants to
taste reality right but everyone wants
to believe in and listen to stories so
fiction is just the right intersection
between these two worlds fiction is
nothing but the truth
sold as a blanket of lies to encourage
to empower to help out and black out the
bad guys so my poem is a piece of
fiction it is the true stories that I
have heard and read over time jan 27
only station kiss happened videos and
interviews went viral on social media it
shook my heart twice I couldn’t believe
that this could happen to us the second
half of Jan I was traveling to jeopardy
attend the chaplet request for the first
time I was scared so as a reflex action
I will visited the pharmacies to buy
myself a pepper spray this was my way of
crapping myself up but unfortunately
they were out of stock
but I had to go this was my calling
now geppu literature fast is this place
for dreamers readers and writers
everyone embraces art in their own way
there is a space for conversation
between the writers and people that you
never know you haven’t heard of so for
the first few days I was by myself and I
happened to meet this beautiful woman
who decided to share stories of her life
with me she told me that she was working
with the sex workers in Shalom the topic
shook me she told me about how women
were okay with selling
their flesh on a temporary basis to earn
money the conditions that they had gone
through many of them said this is what
we do but there was still a layer of
fear that surrounded them every time
they spoke to an outsider they didn’t
know what having a choice meant all of
this shook me again
so the problem they faced were one not
knowing acknowledging the fact that they
had a choice to accepting this concept
of choice and three to do something of
this newfound concept of choice but
later sooner or later the brothel owners
and like-minded elders found out about
this and she had to come back to jail
because it wasn’t safe for her to be
there anymore
forget rescuing anyone else I couldn’t
carry the weight of the damage that
these women carried on their bodies
every day only because they were unaware
and didn’t know didn’t have the
knowledge that there was a freedom of
choice that they could accept and imbibe
in their lives two days into the first I
landed up at the jlf bookstore now this
bookstore is a wonderful place there is
no better space than to breathe in the
world of words right and I found this
book river of flesh and other stories
the prostituted women in Indian short
fiction edited by Ruchi Raghava
this book is an anthology of stories
which crosses barriers of regions
religions 12 languages speaking of
speaking about the trouble that the
women have faced the inequalities that
have led them into prostitution the
fears the fears you know wipe that
they’ve had to come out of it the
conditions that were forced upon them
and the remarkable strength with which
they did come out of them at least some
of them through Mordor
that sometimes hope and fortitude while
reading this book I broke down a couple
of times I couldn’t believe that
something like that happened so close to
home and I wanted to tell myself that
it’s okay there are people out there
like the friend I met a jLF who is doing
something about this who was trying to
reach out and save even a few handful
lives but I couldn’t carry the
unbearable weight of what I had heard
what I knew and what was written so I
decided to write about it this was the
best way that I thought I could express
myself so this poem is the idea of this
poem comes from these two experiences it
shook me again to write about it but I
felt the need to voice the voice all
these women out because something had to
be done even in a small way and people
had to know that this was happening
I’ve realized over time that fiction is
the space where I have learned to
embrace lies for the good wouldn’t you
all agree that lying can sometimes be a
good thing only if it can help and save
a few people’s life so poetry and
fiction does that for me to me
repeatedly so this poem is a part of
that and there are storytellers authors
and writers out there who are doing just
the same through the world of fiction I
asked you to read their work listen to
them give it a thought and maybe just
maybe with your help we can embrace the
space and increase it eventually
drastically fiction is the space
nothing but just an exaggerated truth in
a blanket of lace ideas that come out of
experiences wouldn’t everyone agree that
all of us are just living breathing stories at the end of it
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