Yes, I'm a girl and I'm not trying to justify my body language nor am I positioning the rights of a feminist on the top, but
Yes, I was questioned always, even when I was right.
Subservience was legitimized as my trait ever since I felt this world.
Every time when I was buckled under by his lecherous eyes, I was asked to adjust my dupatta well.
Every action of mine substantiated the height to which I'll hold the name of my family.
I was asked to cross legs while sitting, speak amicably, yet not solitously.
Every time I'd to hide my period stain like a ****** blot.
I was asked to gallop my cramps because letting it out is a bitter sin.
Yes, I get my body scanned by their lewd gaze day in and out even when I put my baggiest of clothes on.
Yes, I'm a girl, and I have beautiful synonyms, call me maal, patola, bomb, *****, *** or a girl? May be, let yourself decide.
Yes, I'm questioned on the extension of the Roti's that I make and the smiles that I couldn't fake.
Yes, I'm a girl and I'll stand, and question your authority if it calls for, call me stubborn. Okay!
Remember, I'm a girl, and if you accuse me of being a feminist if I know, and can raise my tone up and against your authority, humanism needs to be checked then.
-APARAJITA TRIPATHI

Home is an old red rucksack that my mother took round Chile
filled with my baggiest trackies for months
where home is trains and tubes and my headphones on coaches
Home is the rain when it batters the outside of a humble caravan
Home is a little wood burner, and a long green coat that was gifted unintentionally
and worn by many

Home is waiting for the triangle bus
Home is a cup of coffee in the right shaped mug
Home is a cigarette, shared with my sister in a pub
Home is our brother owning the pool table, modest and silent
Home is now the sea, but not in summer
mid-November waves, rough and lonely

Home is the river, the flow and the feeling
the fish and the constellations of a shared celling
Home is mums’ casserole and fresh bread still warm but under proved
Home is a shed, strangled with ivy
Home is tea and malt milk biscuits
Home is magic stars pasta beans and cheese and Netflix
Home is my duvet
Home is crumbs creeping into a lumpy mattress

Home is the day, lazy and underwhelming
Home is grandmas own tomatoes
Home is a laugh from an inside joke
Home is her long red hair, her stumbles and soup
Home is hazel eyes singing, by light from candles in old gin bottles

Home is a spoons breakfast with zero sleep
Home is a sink full of washing up
Home is cobwebs and a faded hoodie stained with paint and the smell of hash
Home is sharpened knife that can nicely slice when I am cooking to the bass my mini rig creates

Home is in the woods a maze of plot twists
mapped in childhoods haze of coordinates
Home holds smiles from guests and strangers who become family
Home is vats of marmalade, in sticky jars that collect dust they sit for so long
Home is the chorus of a Finley Quay song
Home is the journey I am on

Home is the field
the mud when its ripe beneath my toes
the grass worn with love
Home is a guitar (sandy with stickers)
I am home in her lyrics that swirl through the air
captivate by this Home we created
and our feet know the pattens of the beat
Home is the taste of freshly smashed melon
Home is a cluster of tents around a fire
and a tarp of scribbles

Home is the purr of Roo
Her velvet fur and trills of love
Home is an overgrown garden I used to tend to
Home is holly leaves transformed into wishes
Home is memories of butterfly kisses
Home is a hug when words aren't needed
Home is where I'm not alone

Home is him, the smell of his car and comfort of his arms
Home is his orange overalls
Home is a rhetorical question when I’m looking at his face

Tell her she's beautiful
Make sure you tell her every day
Even if she's in her sloppiest sweats and her baggiest sweater
Tell her she's beautiful
And mean it
She won't believe you
But never stop reminding her

Do your best to make her laugh
God she's beautiful when she's laughing
The way her nose wrinkles and her eyes squint
And when she shows that smile
You'll wish she'd never stop

Hold her tight when she cries
She hates showing it
When she has no one else be the one to hold her together
Make sure she never breaks
Squeeze her tight
Let her mascara ruin your shirt
Kiss her on the head let her know
It's going to be okay

She'll wake you up from naps
Just because she wants to spend time with you awake
She'll call you when she's drunk
Because she doesn't know whats going on and needs to hear your voice
She's going to love bothering you
All because she thinks it's cute when you're mad

She makes funny noises at the most inappropriate times
And she dances around the house and pretends to know what she's doing
She's a child sometimes I swear
But you'll learn to love it

Pick her up and kiss her
Kiss her
Like it's the last time
Every time
Look into her eyes
God she has gorgeous eyes
When you try she'll look away because she's shy
But should you get the chance
You'll fall deeper every time

Remind her you love her
And show her with every way possible
Sometimes she'll doubt it
But that's never an excuse to stop
Do whatever you can to put the doubts to rest

She can be a handful
Sometimes a bit too much
But never let her go

Sincerely
A painful memory

I have so much to write.
But writers block is suffocating my writing process.
My mind swarms with so many things to say.
Yet I can't put it to words and it's getting to me.

This is isn't my first rodeo with writers block,
So by now I should know how to break out of this dark hole.
Yet here I am, feeling empty and less whole.

Poetry has always been my form of expression and here I am
Stuck.
But we're going to push it.

This week has been testing me emotionally.
And **** it, writers block won't win this mental war.
My writing won't be up to par,
But it will be my writing.

Emotional test number 1.

I'm getting attention from the opposite gender.
It's as if I'm suddenly in their rader.
Which I can understand to some extent but if you've spent a lot of your life in a specific environment that stayed stagnant.
A sudden change is, overwhelming.

So here I am,
Men staring,
Mouths watering,
Minds wandering away to devouring me.
I can see the lust in their eyes and I guess it's because I look more mature now?
I don't know, its uncomfortable.
I don't know how so many women have to go through feeling like this, especially at their place of work.
Getting some questionable compliments.
And some downright inappropriate snide remarks.
I'm not enjoying it one bit.
And before someone gets to commenting on how I dress, Friday is causal Friday and I wear the baggiest **** ever.

It's weird
And extremely uncomfortable. To be in such a situation.
I hate it.
Especially because the female human resources manager that is supposed to protect the staff at all cost or as far as her work powers allow her to protect is never around.

I don't like it one bit.
I don't like feeling uncomfortable and scared in my work environment because my colleagues and Superiors find me attractive.

Anyway.

WEIRD THING NUMBER 2

I just have to make it in capitals because my heart feels dribbled.
And unlike Football, no one is enjoying the show.
It's just a disaster.

But that's for another day