nobody

my story so familiar, so utterly common place
the cries, the weeping, the wailing for my dead
all the homes i know reek with echoes of such pain
for those mutilated, raped, and dishonored and bled

rude history swept in and flooded my home
chased my dreams away while i stood small and dumb
i ran for my children, left all that i knew
a home, vain comforts, a lifetime rendered numb

wise ones exhorted us women "choose honor over life!"
heavy familial burdens bestowed on us to take
rooms of charred bodies, honorable heaps in the well
they never thought to ask whose choice was it to make

told us a dear new freedom was headed our way
but forgot in those slogans my name and my face
as i was being banished, being compelled to 'choose'
festivities marked the tryst with destiny's famed day

they said it was 'azaadi' for a 'svatantara' new land
demands just sacrifice from all, it was claimed
yet apparently when they came gouging for that rent
our heads were bartered for lines in political sands

a foreign lawyer who'd never set foot on my soil
inked new lines, lit them up and it was declared
clean cartographies created, summarily announced
ancestral homes, generations, lives? simply exchange!

books decoded new lines that severed all old ties
without asking me once how my own life was hacked
this "partition" was explained in historians' thesis
my truth came up trivial compared to those tracts

yet do you see those ties still shackle me today
the nightmares stay close, like wearying next of kin
every year you celebrate freedom -- yet i still burn
the wounds seethe and breathe just under my skin

i rebirthed you countless times, fenced every fear at bay
now will you ease my torment from this vicious history?
will you free my tale from mere domestic rants and tears?
do save your pity but not for me; acknowledge my story

don't let me leave here yet, unheard and unsung
expose unto sunlight my darkness, scars and guilt
don't choose to walk on by unmoved, unchanged
or history she'll come knocking, reigniting every sin!

--reena
august 15th 2013
...for my grandmother - and countless ones like her - who were forced to flee...and others who couldn't!


azaadi = independence/freedom in Urdu
svatantara (स्वतंत्र) = independent/free in Hindi

when she comes

sometimes she comes and perches on my shoulder

uninvited, demanding, screeching like a cloud

pushing my head down, making me hesitant on every move

making me hurt, easy to tears, inexplicable

unexpected this arrival, all her visits 

it's me and it is not really me

she comes and alights with no permission

she take me by storm, it is my invasion

i cover her, i push her, i try not to see her

i cannot even like her but i must forgive her 

all i feel is a helplessness, a loneliness i can't fathom

a breathless hold that's not mine but all mine

there is no reason for this but grief isn't fair

i am but an outcome of an existence that was given

perhaps i should embrace her and hold her as mine

and maybe if i hold tight i will stop her from hurting...


-reena
sometime 2013... i forget the date. she made me.