APURVA DUTTA
The sky lit up with thunder, heard only afterwards,
Meanwhile, frosty winds stirred my bones right through the sternum,
I harrumphed after having cried a good cry,
It was the most petrifying night of my life.
My elfin hands ran across his,
He felt cold and distant, like usual.
His stately eyes reminded me of the horrors behind bolted doors.
I heaved a sigh of discomfort, as my marred past lay ahead of me in my reverie.
I was soon taken aback by a bellowing noise,
I felt the thudding of footsteps in my direction,
I couldn’t tell who or what, for my eyes were welled up in tears,
Or blood?
I could fathom the noise and the footsteps soon,
I didn’t have to put in much thought, they were quick.
I howled as they hauled me, chained me, just like old times.
I guffawed as I saw them as baffled and repulsed as I was-
For fourteen years!
I had sinned, yet I was pleased with it-
Happier than I was with the Bible in my hand and the cross on my bosom.
I had given him the taste of his own medicine,
The ones he made me gobble up every night,
Before climbing onto me, intrudingly, hatefully.
How bewitchingly quite he looked!
Just like my mama, on a similar night.
He strangulated her for she burnt his whips in rage.
Funny how he begged for mercy when I sliced his masculinity with whetted anguish.
He called us whores for we would cry and cry, for we never stopped crying.
He had sold me to a puny human for cash.
I found him equally crass for he’d beat me like an ox,
It was satiating to watch him burn like a raccoon in his sleep,
So much so, that I wanted to feel that sensation again, and again, and again.
Eyes,
Hands,
Penis,
Tongue-
The order in which I bowdlerized him, before stabbing him for fourteen times, or twenty,
I don’t remember,
All I remember is the whimpering, the begging, the promises.
It surely was a long night, terrifying too,
Yet felt so unalike, maybe like it felt for mama in the sky.
The people in the uniform dragged me, and asked me questions,
I could hardly hear their cacophony,
For my epiphany was real, well-deserved and emancipating,
I was free…
My soul was free…
My body was free…
At last…