By Apoorva Kavin
I choose to be me — I am still many, I am still one.
When I wear a maroon shirt, a white pant and a beige tie.
When I wear an iridescent skirt that caresses the ground.
When I bind my chest and I brush my eyebrows thick,
till my skin breathes alongside my lungs.
When you tell me girls with "boy-cut" hair aren't "nice",
and that there is only a binary, a black or a white.
I know you pray for greys to get banished,
clamorously through notions of states and mental prisons.
Talks of validation, of acceptance,
to maintain ORDER, you say.
Order for what?
Control?
Uniformity of souls?
Like cookie-cutter clones?
Lungs that breathe only pre-determined, rationed air?
My order is in me - "Aham Brahmasmi", I say.
My order is in us - being free, breathing free, loving free.
When the stranger on the road scans me head to toe,
only to pause at my chest, then my make-up-clad lips,
like I'm a UPI QR code, asking to be paid some deference.
I wish they'd know that before I stepped out,
I had already burnt notions along with some sage.
What makes a woman?
What makes a man?
Because I've heard it cleans the air — brings in a good aura, you know.
When I run as fast as I can,
crack mathematical equations that launch spaceships,
build factories, lead board meetings for fortune 500s,
water plants, write poems and breathe.
I am me — as many, as one.
So when you ask me next — "what are you"?
I'll tell you this: I am not the boxes you label when you move homes,
or the ingredients on your kitchen counter.
I don't have labels.
Never found them enough.
But 'me' ?
That should be enough.
I wake up everyday wanting to add value to the world,
wanting to bring in harmony and joy,
wanting to unlearn everyday violence,
and be in a state of love and being,
radiating joy for all.
So beyond your labels,
beyond your conditioned veils (of this a man and that is a woman and these are their tagged chores) —
Lie human SOULS who are free.
And that should be enough.
Always enough.