Morbid days and morbid nights,
Trees that no longer live,
Blood in grandmother's hands,
Red fluid that bled thick.
The blood now powdered
By her hands that crushed
The necks of mint leaves.
Baby faces on the walls
Painted yellow and pink.
The same faces haunt at night,
Nights that remind them to laugh,
Laugh and giggle
Over their dead bodies
Thrown in the kitchen garden.
Trees that no longer live,
Plants that died in grief,
The tiny yellow leaves
Of the stems that grew on the bodies,
The roots that captured the hearts.
The blood is now powdered,
Maybe underneath grandmother's pestle.
The mortar smells of rotten flesh,
Grandfather's misery and mother's tears.
The babies laugh as they protest,
They would have bled every month anyway.
Ten dead babies and a newly born,
Grandmother's love and souls torn.
Let the baby live
That bleeds only once
At the time of its death
And not every month...
It was either for the scorching sunrise that hurt her eyes or the cold breeze that blew scratching the fresh wounds on her arms, but Disha could tell that her friend had tears in her eyes for some reason or the other. “Nothing,” Razia said, when confronted by Disha, hiding her eyes as she wiped her tears with her hands. “Got paid?” Disha enquired. “Yes.” Lied Razia while walking towards the place she has been calling home from the past couple of years. She headed for the bathroom as she entered her room where two girls were sitting, one smoking a cigarette while the other wearing make-up in front of the broken mirror in the room. Razia cleaned her skirt that was smeared with her blood. She wasn’t prepared for it. After all it was that 14- year old’s first time. Not the first time that she had been “ridden” by men, nor the first time that she bled while bearing the intolerable pain the men gave her, but for the first time that she painlessly bled indicating a cycle o...
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