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I'm chandelier earrings up for rent by the hour in dark alleys with betel stains, a child-woman waiting for her customer. I'm a thick bush of petals for your daily worship.
I’m chandelier earrings up for rent by the hour in dark alleys with betel stains, a child-woman waiting for her customer. I’m a thick bush of petals for your daily worship.
I wear a Peter Pan hat and a red gown
that slowly unfurls.
Tiny vermillion dots tail me,
bringing bell metal and incense in their wake.
You sew me up when
I’m still a kid, say it’s a garland pure for gods —
I writhe in shock, then numbing pain…
I quench your thirst
with blood, my tart blood.
I’m your shoeshine girl…
for centuries, clearing out the muck beneath your feet.
Pity your conscience doesn’t
shine enough.
I’m chandelier earrings up for rent
by the hour in dark alleys with betel stains,
a child-woman waiting
for her customer.
I’m a thick bush of petals
for your daily worship.
I’m also a warship, slashed and burned
and cigarette-butted into submission —
I’m a chameleon, really.
But most of all, I am raw flesh,
a naked goddess,
throbbing with all the gore
I have drunk, slick with the
sweat of justice.
They call me a chilli
sometimes, when the heat
bothers them too much.
Image source: IanZa on pixabay
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This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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Dear Women’s Web Community Member,
You may have wondered at our being on the quieter side during the last couple of months. Thank you for your patience, and we wanted to come back to you with a detailed note on what’s been happening at our end of things.
When we first began Women’s Web, as a blog from one woman’s desk along with a few like-minded souls, little could we have imagined the heights that it would soar to. Over the years, Women’s Web has published over 20000 stories (almost all by women), empowered countless women with the ideas, community and resources to chase their dreams, employed hundreds of women in core and project-based roles, and in the process, emerged as the OG women’s community in India. It has also inspired many others to build communities of a similar nature, all enabling women (and other-underrepresented groups) in their own ways.
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