We will pirouette
On browned grass, until it turns
Into faery rings.

Leave thought of her-in-
Often-thought-of-you; Virtue
Makes way for torment

rewind; replay
    we're standing in a canopy of sunlight
    and laughing, constantly.
    our faces are tired of moving up
    but our eyes are used to crinkling;
    they fold, and shut, and open like buds
    with the spread and shrink of our grins, in
    and out, with our lungs.
Pauze. Zoom.
    Your nails are chipping now, but
    You're really a halfwit,
    So that doesn't deter you the least bit
    From scratch-scratch-scratching at their shook ends:
    They fall apart as we fall out.
    We're spinning, we're dizzyingly quick,
    Hurtling at the speed of 28,800 kilometres an hour; we're brisk
    At best. (Inconceivable at worst.)
    And I can feel, already, you slipping away.
    You're outside of my grasp; you're far out.
rewind; replay.
    We're ripping at the seams;
    Our faces are like bad make-up
    That doesn't move with our smiles;
    Our eyes stay impassive,
    Uninterested at best. Incensed at worst.
    The crinkles in their corners are crusted
    And new folds form on the frowns of our foreheads.
    We're smothering each other in pillow talk and blankets.
Flash-forward, play.
    We're bathed in rain, we're in a
    Canyon, in a chasm.
    We don't know salt from wound
    Or snake from bite. We
    Bring out the worst in our best selves.
    We're drowning in suitcases and bedding.
    We let it fill our lungs and we
    Don't look back.

The girl you see on the train
With a piercing to commemorate each heartbreak
Has a few in places you can't see
— Because you can't know her relationships;
You don't know her heartbreak, or pain.
Instead, you count the suitcases and handbags she is lugging.

The girl who got a new piercing each time her heart broke
Has more smile lines on her face than studs,
So you can see she has had a fair measure
Of good moments:
She is not all rough edges and elbows.

But what you don't know,
And can't tell
From looking at her alone,
Is that she got a tattoo
Each time that she moved on.

The girl with as many piercings as heartbreaks
-And as many tattoos as movings on-
Has eight pieces of jewellery
Strung through her skin,
But only seven markings
Inked into it,
Because she knows she'll never quite get over
The one she can't quite forget.

You'll have to speak to her to know her—
A stranger on the train—
And let her tell you about her life;
And one day you'll hold her hand
As she gets her eighth tattoo done.
Break out of your bubble, if only because
One day, eight heartbreaks in, you'll help her break even.

She was in her heavy, heavy
          Auspicious reds
On that cold winter's night,
When he arrived in white.

She stood shivering, dreaming
Of domestic bliss
And watching mindless films
On new couches with the plastic still on them
And pitter-pattering little feet.
She didn't know the names
Of some of the things she wanted
But she wanted them anyway.

All she got was barked orders
Of "have tea ready by 6 am sharp,"
And "you missed a spot."

And she is shackled
Under the weight
Of her oppressive reds.
She is scrubbing; she is trapped;
She lines her forehead every day,
Right where her hair is parted,
With the red of her blood
And devotion.

And he whispers to her
In the silence of the night that's on their shoulders by now
When they're at a traffic light,
Waiting on the blink,
"I'll send you a bill,
For each day and
                                night."

Our city
of forts and malls and cinema halls
is littered with the filth of our minds
and our mouths.
We are lost; we are broken;
we are muffled and soft-spoken.
Big city dreams
of art and changing the world
slip away every time we wake up
on grimy beds we’ve never seen before
with soot on our feet, and our hands
bound with ***** hair,
backs bent under the weight of all they’ve left us.
The mud in our fingernails leaves us a mess,
in the shapes of the night's sticky, grubbiness:
a twisted Rorscharch inkblot.
We see it all replaying,
—flickering, as we’re swaying—
on grimy ceilings, where the light bulb
seems askew, and dangling
in an effort to hypnotise us,
left, and right, and left.
Every day is a repeat of the same,
—chai glasses, and cigarette butts
with redlipstickstains,
rickshaw rides (exactly thirty rupees steeper
than the rate on the meter),
cat calls that slap in one ear and slip spit out the other.
Our roads are lit by TV-light,
a muted glow that follows us everywhere.
Anonymous blankness follows blankness
and the dark dankness
of grocery stores and souls
that can’t recognise each other anymore.
Silly young things dreaming of bliss,
And new couches, and tiny feet
Instead hear only
"Scrub harder," "Needs more salt," and
"Turn over; come closer; be quiet."
Bare feet in splotchy grass
with brown and green ankles
are replaced by sore heels and push-up bras.
Pens scratching on paper
are replaced by knives slashing skin
and flesh and bones
hitting sharply so that the onomatopoeia
of the shlick-crack-crack
draws out delighted laughter
from blackened, smoky mouths
— and peals of screams that no one hears,
the afterthoughts of parking lots.
The fire of fingers leaves marks, scars;
and their tips grow spikes
into the goosebumps on our arms;
knuckles peel away skin,
everywhere they trace;
and fists clench
around our bodies,
that don’t belong to us.

But we know, one day,
our spring will come
and we will leave the heat on our backs
in dust.
We will go down with Persephone
and take our flowers with us.
We will swim upside down
so we feel like we can fly.
Every rock laying unturned, we know,
has a cosmic universe throbbing
patiently under it.
We will lie, resilient, awake at night,
dreaming cautiously, softly,
so no one hears,
but dreaming nonetheless.
Dreaming of our wings melting
over and over again,
when we get too close to the denied,
day after day, until
we can build wings strong enough
to hold the heat of the sun
inside them, and then propel further.
We’ll show them
— tell your sisters and daughters and friends!—
we’ll show them,
Because your sticks and stones
Can break only our bones
And not our minds. We are
Goddesses, even in a dimly lit bar
Or the back of a fast car,
Just as in temples. We are
Goddesses, whether we whisper in soft tones
Or shout it in the streets,
Whether we lie in strangers' sheets
Or break our backs bending
to ***** feet.
When we're beaten by a spouse,
Or changing tactic,
We'll be both your angels in the house,
And your madwomen in the attic.