Summon Your Rage

By Pooja Elangbam

The first time was when they picked on the shy girl

in middle school for her stammer and called her names

The second time was when you wrote an article

in your school newspaper condemning caning of students,

And another time you got into a fight with an older boy

For pestering you even when you said no to being his girl.

By then you lost count of all the arguments you had ,

the friends you lost and outgrew along the way.

 Something would erupt inside you

when jokes are told to humiliate,

when people don’t recognise their privilege,

 when the world turns dark,

preys on the weak and  the innocent.

And all these years later, you are still the same,

not used to the ways of the world

even though they mask it in the name

 of tradition, of culture, of love and loyalty,

of this-is-how-it-has-been-done,

the silent abuses in homes, the grudges

that run deep within communities,

passed on like heirlooms from one generation

to another; how to break this chain?

 To care enough about the world to want to change it,

To  care enough that sometimes you can’t sleep at night

Disturbed by how little you can do, how long the fight.

But you would rather take the emotional toll

 of anger running through your veins than

to become desensitised to the wrongs of the world.

Summon this rage, this will be your superpower

In a world that loses its way.