softantigone

[softantigone]

Long after I am gone, you will remember me. You will remember how I loved you like I meant it, and how you joked about it to your friends. How you mocked my romanticism and met my sincerity with criticism. How love was not a game for me. How I felt feelings enough for the both of us. As if you were any better with your options and paradox of choice.

You will remember me when you die alone.

You will remember me drunk dancing on tables as I caught the feels, my long hair slapping the air like the tail ends of electric eels.

You will hear me in other people's stubborn opinions and when you tongue fuck strange women in the dark.

You will think of my siren eyes and gapped front teeth, and you will whimper in defeat.

You will find me in every sweet smelling thing, every white lily.

Long after I am gone, you will know what I meant to you. Like a book that lay undiscovered for years until it posthumously won a literary award, you will find me on every shelf. They will quote me till you're driven into obsession, begging for a taste. You will miss me and my dog-like devotion, my deer in the headlights innocence. You will never read Joan Didion the same way again, you will never listen to Turkish psychedelia and not feel your heart sink.

Long after I am gone, you will never be able to laugh at love again because it gave you so much pain.

None of your lovers will stay

because what the fuck can they say

when you call them the wrong name

and then look away in shame?

This is the curse I leave behind for how you dismembered me.

The townsfolk will pity you like you pitied me.

You will hear my voice sweeping through the streets, calling out for you like a child lost in a crowded market square.

You will wander into alleys screaming my name like a madman, and the echoes will eat you alive.

You will never find me again.

[softantigone]

you know what? some kids go to

school with bags and water bottles

some kids go to school with drugs.

some kids go to school with guns

some kids don't go to school at all.

you know what? abortion laws in

ohio and alabama are fucking real.

the refugee crisis is real.

rape is real, abuse is real, trauma is

fucking real. global warming

and climate change are fucking real.

you know what? democracy is a lie. your government is lying to you.

your families are lying to you.

cut the crap about casteist attacks being the work of only the extremists

'it's them not us' means 'i dont care about people being killed as much as i care about protecting my religion'

and you know WHAT? islamophobia and malnutrition

and AIDS and countries neck deep in military dictatorship

and homophobia and violence and racism and child labour are REAL

one billion children

are living in poverty worldwide

one fourth of all humans live without electricity

people don't have clean drinking water

people are hungry and dying

so no, no you do not have the

fucking right to say

you are 'apolitical' or 'neutral'

not when every choice you make is

so blatantly political

right from the roads you take to the

media you consume

not when you're choosing to be silent

when so many voices are being silenced

not when the world is still not a safe space for most people

no you don't get to say that

don't you dare do that

don't you dare walk through a fucking war

and build a big mansion right in the middle of it

not when you've built it over someone else's body

you're being complicit

even when you think you're not,

you're standing on our bones.

[softantigone]

My mother tells me a story

about star crossed lovers:

the day they found each other,

destiny was gambling in a shady

casino on the outskirts of hell.

It took one look at them,

and broke down in tears.

It wasn't sure it would win,

but they didn't care.

Sometimes, I think about you

and remember this fairytale.

We're the sky's favourite children

because we make falling

look like luxury hotels by Hilton.

You brought me flowers and

I told you I wasn't a grave.

You let me hurt you yet

left behind your aftershave.

I'm gun, blood and machete

you're rainy day playlists and confetti.

I'm splintered bones sewn together

you're hot pack in sweater weather.

Your lashes are perfect haikus

and I'm a hard-hearted recluse

but I stay because you're the one who

dressed my demons in princess clothes

because you're the one who

runs along when my past is after me

but most of all,

because you're the one who taught me

not to fear the dark.

Once you told me,

the night is just God wearing

a sleep mask over her eyes.

I want you to know,

I think you are her

most beautiful

dream.

[softantigone]

I’m tired of pretending. I’m sitting in an after party playing never-have-I-ever and all I want is to call you drunk and tell you I fucking hate you. That when I called you a cloud burst in a mint oreo sky, you rained on my parade and goddamn left. I don’t want to run into you at parties and fake smile and act like you didn’t break my heart. I don’t want to look at you and think about the butterflies I had to kill in my stomach just because you weren’t ready. I get that people are allowed to leave, but I’m allowed to be mad about it too. I don’t want to tell people I’m moving on when all I can taste is my guts somersaulting in my windpipe like it’s a shaky ladder to a derelict attic. You fucking locked me in the attic with old photos of us. I’m caught in this hell where I’ve to be nice to you after we fell apart because otherwise, I’m immature or uncool. If I could take back catching feelings faster than a state fair ride that made me sick, I would. I’m tired of worrying about being the one who got hurt more. I’m tired of worrying if I don’t put a face on, people are going to pity me. I’m tired of men calling me dramatic for not faking indifference after someone I loved passionately abandoned me. No, I don’t want to say no hard feelings. Don’t you dare look at me like I’m making a big deal out of it. Not when you threw me away and had me bleeding my gums out from chewing onto your kisses to stop them from turning into ghosts. Not when I had to resurrect myself from embarrassing meltdowns at work and impulsive 3 AM phone calls to my therapist. Not when you made me feel like a rented car you donated to a tow truck. Not when you just decided you didn’t want me anymore and left me so vulnerable I found myself stumbling into churches and crying in the shower and self-destructing. It's a big deal to me, and you better respect that. And I might be weak, but I’m not phoney. I’m not going to be part of your play-play, and I’m not going to lie about my emotions. So if you want me sitting next to you sharing a beer and joking around and being all hipster because we’ve got history, then sorry, I’m out. Because I don’t want to be friends.

[softantigone]

Before you know it, you’re

forty-five and confused about

life and there are eighteen-

year-olds going to the best

business schools and science

projects by pre-teens that look

like they could win the Nobel

prize and women whose tummies

are as flat as a strand of hair

from a straightening iron

and suddenly, you’re caught

in a rat race where everyone’s

competing for the most

aesthetic instragram profile

or the latest version of a phone

they bought at an online sale

and you’re wondering if you’re

doing enough, or worse, if

you’re living enough. You think

just because you didn’t get

that scholarship like your

best friend did, you couldn’t

go abroad and travel Europe

and brag about English

breakfast tea like she did

that if you haven’t read Jane

Austen or listened to Aretha

Franklin like your brother told

you to, you’re living under a rock.

That your life isn’t interesting

or fulfilling or real unless you

jump from a cliff or get chased

by a tiger or do all those

adventurous things this girl you

knew from first grade is doing now

after she broke up with her

boyfriend and you’ve always

got this fear of missing out

because ever since you were

a kid you were told to bring

home gold medals and ever

since you went to school

you were taught to lay down

every beauty trick you knew

and ever since you got your first

job, you were made to hustle

as if time was running out.

Do you think people like us

will ever be satisfied?

We will sit in our graves

years after we are dead

and pull out our report cards

and certificates. We will

show off our grades and

the marathons we have won

and there will only be

two questions asked:

“were they good people?”

“were they loved?”

and we will realize

it is all that ever mattered.

[softantigone]

And I'd like to think that one day

someone would write a poem

about how precious introverts are

about all those people who

can stay quiet in a noisy room

the ones who aren't the life of the

party or the centre of attention

the last to raise their hand in class

even when they know the answer

the wallflowers who pick their

words before they say them

the private folks who walk away

in the politest way

when they don't like a conversation

so they can go back to a good book

and the listeners who wait

until you finish what you have to say

because there's beauty

in patience and respect

the observers who pick out

tiny details about you and get to

know you without asking any questions

the solitude lovers who've spent

enough time on their own

to know what they want

the old souls who keep secret diaries

and write love letters instead

of picking up that damned phone

and asking you out

and the ones who will never do small talk

because they've either got

nothing to say or way too much

because when they do open up

you'll feel like you're inside a cozy library

all that silence but so much to explore

and you'll wonder if magic has

the right to feel this shy

so here's a poem to us introverts

whom the world mistakes for timid losers

"scared to make the first move"

"awkward and weird and antisocial"

when there's

nothing more powerful

than someone

who knows

how to be friends

with

themselves.

[softantigone]

You want to know when I'll stop drifting. You tell me poetry can't buy me food and housing, and I know this. Every poet knows this. I want you to know I never intended to hurt my family by being this way. You're right, I'm a loner and a loser and I don't know what's good for me and I'll die broke and alone. But you've no idea what I've lived through, and that's what makes me angry. You make me want to hate myself, and today, I just won't do it. I won't be a summary of my failures, the friends who moved on from me or the men I did not marry and have children with. Today I will not be exasperated with myself for not going by the book or matching everyone's pace and expectations. I won't take the blame for the impossible love affairs I'm drawn to because of my own emotional unavailability. Today I refuse to be terrified of growing old before I become whole again. And today I won't tremble at how my vulnerability and unhinged confessional poetry have been repeatedly misinterpreted as invitation for narcissists, opportunists and predators to hunt me down. I am so tainted, but today I won't compare to every other untainted person. There is no envy in me, and I am at peace in my own stupid way. I know I am not normal, but I'm trying to be. If you don't get it, stay out of it. People like you don't need reminding that one little breakdown before dinner doesn't mean the rest of the evening is doomed. I do. Tonight, the power has been cut, it is raining in Trivandrum, and I'm prancing around on the terrace to the symphony it makes with my anklets. You'll never understand, but it is only in moments like this that I stop looking for the woman I could have become had the world been safer. In moments like this, the grief is a skirt wrapped around my waist, hurtling in all directions, sequin flying from it, lighter than ever. And in moments like this, my head is spinning, spinning in tandem with burning questions you're not worth answering: After all that violence, why is there still so much good left in me? (And in light of this wisdom, how could I ever hate myself again?)

[softantigone]

it’s been six months since the woman

next door signed her divorce

papers & I’ve been watching her turn

her loneliness into something decent

I have watched her go from

forgetting to stock the fridge

to drinking milk directly from the

carton to making tea the way her

mother taught her & I have watched

her fold her bedsheet into a

perfect rectangle when there was

a time she couldn’t stop snoozing

the alarm from late night

after night of binge drinking

I have heard her odd hour SOS

calls to emergency contacts

slowly transform into weekends

of washing the curtains &

listening to podcasts about

investments & clothes neatly

ironed instead of carelessly being

worn inside out & I have run

into her shopping for scented oils

for warm showers to wash off

the long, tiring days when

once the neighbour who kept

their trash outside her door

could’ve reduced her to tears

I have watched her convert

all that she carried into

a peaceful, lovable thing &

I’ve watched her getting used to

having herself around & even liking it

& through it all I have wondered

what a ridiculously underrated

phenomenon recovery is & so today

is the day I’m going to tell her

I noticed her baby steps

even if the rest of the world didn’t

& if you ever find yourself

observing someone else’s tiny

progress in picking themselves up

tell them, tell them, tell them

their progress is seen

their progress is heard

their progress is felt & it doesn’t

have to shake the earth or move

a mountain for them to be

beside themselves

with pride.

[softantigone]

I draped love over me

like a little girl trying her

mother’s saree in secret.

It didn’t take long for

it to come loose.

The first man I loved

was sheer georgette at first

and then all safety pins.

The next had a grip

on me that was tighter

than a badly stitched blouse.

It took a while to take him off

and when I did, the garment tore.

And then there was the one.

The one left me exposed

like a bare waist.

I neatly folded myself into

his life like a perfect pleat

and yet somewhere

we went wrong.

And so between us we stitched

a border in silk and threw

our love behind the shoulders

letting the end piece fall in grace.

Even when we ended, we ended in love.

And then there were some others:

Lush fabric but hastily done.

Lovely colours but a mismatch.

For no fault of ours, it faded.

Love was scary to wear.

I tripped and I tripped

and I tripped.

But I know I tried my best.

I know I will try again.

One day I will get it right

and mark my words,

it will look beautiful on me.

[softantigone]

I’m scared in the afterlife

everyone I’ve ever loved

sits in a circle confessing

they wish I’d made

more time for them

I think a lot about standing

at the gates of heaven

or hell or wherever the heck

I’ll be sent to

and the password for entering

is a simple sherbet recipe

I never asked my best friend for

when he made it for me

the night I walked all the way

to his place in the rain

after getting my heart broken

by a boy who wasn’t

even my boyfriend

guess you know now

I’ve wasted too much time

on the wrong people

and by the way

are there hip hop classes

in the great beyond

because the last time my sister

asked if I’d go with her

I said no

but swear I’d like another chance

& maybe one more with my mother

I want to redo that day

when I could’ve gone

diwali shopping with her

instead of giving dating advice

to this classmate who turned

against me a week later

I could’ve played chess

with my grandmother

all those hours I spent

mindlessly surfing the net

could’ve watched the match

with my father

could’ve gone for that lame

action movie with my brother

& I hope the afterlife is long

& I hope the afterlife has

everyone I’ve ever loved

but more than anything

I hope I don’t ever

have to wait till the afterlife

to tell everyone I’ve ever loved

that I love them.

[softantigone]

I knew a man who never told me he

loved me but hung chocolates on trees

when he saw me plant wrappers

in his banana grove & water them

cycled all the way to the next city

to buy the birthday frock I wanted

sat with me while I studied for tests

didn’t know much about Science

but when I asked him what

the earth looked like from the moon

gave me a blue marble &

said it was shiny & sweet &

ridiculously precious like granddaughters

taught me to fold my failed

answer sheet into a paper kite

told me night was just the sky with a black eye

every time the power went off because

he saw I was afraid

I knew a man who never told me

he loved me but I knew it anyway

I knew it from the way he loved

the women in my family & the way

he switched places with my grandmother

& took over the kitchen so she could

watch her favourite television show

I knew it from the way he braved

red ant bites to pluck mangoes

for the pickle she was making

& the way he wept for my bruised

knees & ate my medicines

with me every time I had a fever

just to keep me company

I knew a man when I was a very little girl

a man I couldn’t forget even when I grew into a woman

a man who moved me to believe that

though love was scary

I could be caught red-handed

loving a man like this

neck with guillotines &

still feel safe with a man like this

spend the rest of my life doing stupid things

like growing chocolate trees wherever I went

with a man like this.

[softantigone]

We all know how the story goes. You make me feel (if not loved) beautiful. We hold hands, pretend we’re in a 90’s movie. You’re no different from all the ghosts, so why did I think you were? Spin me around, it felt good to twirl in my satin skirt. I knew someone like you: easy on the eye, tough on the heart. We all know how that story went. (Down the drain.) You know, I never thought about him until you began pushing me away. Quietly, subtly, willing me to pick up the signs. He was a gentleman. Gentlemen keep in touch, gentlemen slow fade so you don’t get hurt. Clean exits, that’s what gentlemen do. Say hello now and then, let her down innocently. Right. What did you think? That I’d lay awake wondering where I went wrong? Blame myself, question my worth, God forbid, beg? Oh no, no, no. I was young the first time I did that. I was seething, hurting, drunk, bruising myself on beds I didn’t belong in. I loved hard, and that was it. But now? I love hard and forget harder. No, you listen. This is how the story goes. I wake up, brush my teeth, think about you a couple of times. And then never again. I do my liner heavy, enter the city streets in my satin skirt like a divine beast. I’m no longer in a 90’s movie, I’m New Age, every angle shot from the female gaze. The Gods were tripping when they made me, head banging to my breath like it was holy trance music. I can make any ghost disappear, not just you. We all know how the story goes, it goes wherever the fuck I want it to. Because it’s my story. No, I am the story. When I fling the rose-tinted glasses away, strangers tell me I have the loveliest eyes. I meet my friends, mean girls goddess circle, we laugh you out. Over and out. Pink purple eyeshadow time in the washroom. Mirror selfies, blasphemous pouts. Once a hit-and-run called me a great kisser, but you know what I’m really good at? Clean exits. You don’t know how to do it? No worries, let me handle it. That’s right. Learned it from the masters. Smooth. Sharp. As quick as a butcher’s knife. Let me show you how it’s done, baby. Close your eyes. I promise, it’ll be over before you know it.

You won’t even feel a thing.

(I know I don’t.)

[softantigone]

It’s 6:00 in the morning.

The first woman on earth stumbles into her bedroom.

She takes a bite from the apple,

throws it into the bin.

Her lover is asleep.

When he wakes up next to her

he will never know

she has been out hunting.

But she has been out hunting and God, how.

The owls and the jackals have seen

what the humans don’t

they’ve seen her galloping into

the forbidden thickets of paradise

to transform

under the moonlight.

Scales and slit tongue and all.

They know the blasphemous truth:

She is the garden of Eden,

she is the serpent.

And when she dies, she will gift her daughters the one thing

that protects them: venom.

You should know,

your rage is not a curse.

That there will be nights you dream of floating in an island, your feet bare

singing with other cannibal girls,

your mouth watering for shipwrecks.

Nights you find yourself in Lady Macbeth’s clothes

licking your hands dry

as if blood were an acquired taste.

Salivating over the king’s death like Anne Boleyn,

awakening as the Black Swan.

You will find yourself

slithering into sleek, sensual

off-the-shoulder

the evening

Charles confesses to his infidelity

and Princess Diana

steps out in her revenge dress.

Writing angry trauma poetry

while Beyonce records Lemonade.

Betrayal is the background score,

now that queens are singing.

You will get ugly.

You will play dirty.

And when mother asks you,

how did you turn into a demon?

You will say

have you seen the world?

I’m just camouflage.

[softantigone]

MAGIC LAMPS

I am not subtle.

I am graphic and uninhibited.

I know my face

is not kind

I know it is

unapproachable.

But I know enough to

find beauty in its strangeness

in the defiant eyebrows

and the attention-seeking nose

I know enough to accept

the proud, warlike eyes

and the shameless lips.

I am not a starry-eyed maiden

I know I don’t belong in castles.

I am the beast

banished to a small

cottage by the sea

with a coffee machine

and a nice fireplace

and enough novels

to make me feel like coming back

to myself

after a tiring day.

I am the political philosophy

for any man who is a

fool for liberty

because I am freedom,

the kind that has

scissors for hands

and bulldozers

for teeth,

the kind that has doves

inside its boxing gloves.

and I know I am intimidating

I know it when I am told to

look like I am not

thinking

like I am waiting,

waiting for

a man

because I am supposed to love

like a petal not a

grenade launcher.

and I know

nobody wants

an unruly tigress inside

their house

nobody wants

a huntress

roaring at her own shadow

as she prowls the night

but I am that

all of that.

I am not demure.

I am not pastel or cream

I am neon so blinding

they had to wear protective goggles

for the rest of their lives.

I am not a graceful woman.

pent up rage and breakdowns

are not graceful.

my sadness does not have

a postal address.

and sometimes

my survival looks like

wholesale slaughter

but I can be outrageously

beautiful when

I breathe.

I am the girl bartered away

by those I called family,

technicolour dream coat and all.

I am the one they threw

into dark caves

only to find her

crawling out with jewels

and magic lamps.

And so they tell me

I cannot turn scars into

stories

cannot build glory out of shame

but I swear one day,

I will have book shelves in my name.

[softantigone]

Games? I’m too old for them. Ancient,

even. I’ve been quietly growing into my

house like a tree. Roots and all. It’s

flowering season, my hair is a

sweet bloom of curls. I’ve

been humming the songs of

the settled. Sometimes I wonder,

what have I become? Once

I was a magician, pulling

men out of my hat, slapping cards

on the table, none of them hearts. I

walked into rooms, sequin-sleeved,

deep-necked, glitter heels whispering

no good, no good, no good. For the sky,

a competition so high I made it cry. But

now it feels like a different life. I’ve

slow legs, I’ve become a fanatic of

cotton pajamas. Eye masks.

Bed time at ten. Sometimes I think

my grandmother is younger than me.

Sometimes it feels as if my

world has shrunk. I don’t talk

to new people everyday, but I’ve got

a handful of old ones I run away with

now and then. I turn down invitations,

I’ve been missing out, missing

out, missing out. What a

beautiful new habit. Hope it stays.

Age. Sad we’ve been taught to fear it.

But who knew I could raise a cat so well?

No longer losing it before I count till ten?

There’s still that instinct at times, I

have to admit. Blood rushes to my head,

cruel words dance on the tip of my

tongue when I rage, but I have

mastered the art of breathing. Of

chewing those words and spitting them

out in kinder shapes. They no longer

lash out, they simply draw boundaries.

They don’t stay up late, sugar-coated.

Sultry summer mouth, pouting in violet.

No more fingers skidding on alphabets

to form genius drunk texts to colleagues.

I’m awake now only to shop for furniture.

I go soft for the pretty decor.

I’m more vitamin D than moonlight.

Some would call it indecent. Offensive.

But I’m absolutely uncool. Isn’t it lovely?

So why would you want to complicate it?

Call me and tell me you love me.

Yes, love, that thing teenagers laugh at.

No shame in falling. And none in staying.

Say you don’t want to kiss strangers.

It was a different time. A different you.

Catch those stupid feelings, come over.

Fresh toast in the morning, not leftover.

No games, all hearts, overexposure.

Entangled. Roots on roots.

Loser and loser.

What joy, to be uncool together.

[softantigone]

Most of us will live the DIY life.

You will never have a house with an Eiffel Tower view,

never enjoy evenings in a bath tub with a champagne or two

but you will make do in your little room

with your ten rupee mango juice

and sax jazz playing on your broken phone

(my mother always said

there was someone out there

without a roof over their head,

but she didn’t say it was one-fifty million)

and you will never go to the moon like Armstrong

(so what)

you’ll manage with just dreaming

still get to watch it night after night,

(my ancestors tell me,

the moonlight comes all the way down to earth

just to see me)

what I mean to say is,

you don’t need a summer body

to love swimming in the ocean,

skinny dipping or showering under a waterfall

what I mean to say is,

you’ll never have the perfect job

or the perfect look

(once my flatmate straightened her hair

with an iron box because she saw beautiful girls on TV,

I wouldn’t advise that)

or the perfect gang, because

your friends won’t even know one another

(but they love you the same anyway)

what I mean to say is,

you won’t be on a red carpet

or a yacht or a grand championship game

but you’ll be curled up in a circle with strangers

on a hostel bunk bed, cheating at UNO

when there’s no electricity

playing cricket on an abandoned ground

with muddy neighbours, barefoot

(and it’ll be enough)

there will be makeshift days and learning

to find the extraordinary

in the ordinary

(I figure it out by falling)

you won’t have it all,

but you will have some of it

maybe a father who stays up late

till you come back home

maybe a warm hug that keeps you going

maybe a phone call to look forward to

maybe a pet waiting for work to get over

maybe an hour off

maybe a moment of calm

or a belly laugh

to get by

most of us will live the DIY life

(but I promise, it’s still a good life.)

[softantigone]

You will lose friends to distance.

You will lose friends to death.

You will double text a friend who’s newly in love crying about how they never hang out with you anymore.

You will fall out with a friend over a silly argument.

One among the two of you will not forgive.

You will cut off a friend who hurt another friend and you will get jealous over friends who meet without you especially when you introduced them to each other.

Occasionally, feelings get in the way, but they will be so embarrassingly one-sided.

Occasionally, friends become lovers and lovers become ex-lovers.

And then there are ex-lovers who become friends.

Friends who move in with you and make you realize you can’t stand them.

Friends you third-wheel around awkwardly.

Friends who hug you, then hurt you.

Friends like me and you, because let’s be honest, we’ve ghosted people too.

Friends who teach that only one out of twelve friendships lasts.

Friends you share a wardrobe with for three months until you don’t anymore.

Friends you knew longer than a lifetime and still miss dearly.

And eventually, new friendships

whose handshakes and smiles and common interests

promise you that at no given point of time will you ever be alone.

That no matter how many friends you lose, there will always be at least one friend out there on this big little planet,

to ask you about your day.