Home Is – Delhi Poetry Slam

Home Is

BY EKSHIKAA S

Home is
where the people we love have the privilege to hurt us.

Home is where women like to scrub the rusted stains of misogyny from the strawberry granite countertops.

Home is where pipes reek and smell of unsaid words.

Where secrets find refuge in the closet,
and where the wives are warriors battling for a seat at the table.

Home is where the women fold clothes,
they’ve been taught to pick them up around the house,
wash clothes,
dry clothes,
fold clothes.

They were never taught to unfold the mess in their marriages.
To wash themselves from the verbal filth hurled on them.

To ventilate the assumptions and expectations and dry the tears of their sisters.

Home is where the women weave pauses and brew guilt.
They are sculpted like clay, not as art, but dirt.

Home is where we learn to pick up after ourselves, until responsibility becomes our identity.

With raised hands that hang in the air —
aprons are armour and apples our ammunition,
home is where we learn of resilience with a smile.

Home is where I hold my mother’s hand and say, “It’s okay. We'll be fine.”


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