Mom

I was lost in the sea

And willing to float.

I thought I was meant to be a nomad

And always striving. 

I thought hope was not for me

But my life was an endless giving.

I had resigned at the altar of parenting

For that is how much I valued who you were to me. 

My son would only light up again

Once I was home. 

I could limp and rest

And you would not shy away. 

You protected me every step of the way.

I now know every light in me

began with you. 

Each laughter elicited by you. 

The glint in the eye

and the unerring will

was granted to me, 

by the memory of your love, still. 

Broken bone or broken heart.

Your tending was never off the mark. 

Thick and thin through you stood.

No scar you turned your face from. 

Faith grew as did hope

For I have never failed as you stood by my side. 

It hurts so much to see you grey. 

I guilt for having made you enter the fray. 

The energy stood dark and vicious

It took all our guile and guts to hoodwink

Together we stood around a hapless child

Breathless and hurrying to tend to wounds. 

The stories within did not scare you

You flinched as they spill out

you didn't pause me. 

This time. you said. 

Get it out for good. 

You refused to let the ugliness pause you. 

That very act was healing. 

Healing it is. 

That you do by being there. 

That gentle arm on the shoulder. 

The gentle nudge when tired. 

The food when we're hungry. 

Like I always say. 

You have saved more than one life. 

By holding on. 

The Sunshine and the Song

It was just two jokes and a forgotten bye

A smile half-shared and a set of 

saucy comments shared. 

I was laughing at a joke and 

in an instant turned into a wince of pain

as I chanced upon one of my many scars

Suddenly how aware if was of how naked I was

In the presence of a whole and new gentleman

Someone who would step farther than he should

Who shook with trepidation if he were to accidentally

probe a wound.. one of the many he could sense. 

The clouds rolled into my life and I found myself

grasping for grounding. 

I cried out to the winds and a voice answered

“Steady yourself and breathe!”

Something about that voice was soothing. 

I obeyed without recognising I obeyed it. 

I flowed along and found myself underwater most times

A hand tried to grasp mine to help me.. 

My heart filled with gratitude and a longing 

that hand was such a Godsend! 

‘Give me not your heart —

give me your resolve instead’

the voice commanded. 

After years of giving me heart away. 

To someone to anything or anyone. 

I had my resolve just enough to stay alive. 

‘Love me back a little and I can breathe again’

I cried in return. 

‘I will walk the way with you and 

can help you’ but do not ask me to tie myself to you. 

‘I need anchoring!’ I cried. I am lost and lonely. 

Ever so gently you tied your boat to mine and let me row.

Disappearing when I didn’t need you

and correcting my course when I couldn’t see where I was going.. 

Your voice in my heart was the nicest things

on most days in this dreary journey that was 

otherwise filled with isolation and fear. 

However, one fine day as the scars resurfaced

it was as though I was seized with a fear that was 

unnatural. 

I plucked out for security and love and found you shying

from my grasp. 

At that moment you were simply a frightened child 

holding away from the touch of a drowning woman. 

Try as I might to tell you I was bringing the embrace 

of love and care

You stood back and lowered your eyes and clothed me again. 

Bereft of warmth and reassuring voice, I was 

determined to row without you. 

With the sound of your voice, I breathed. 

I knew you had to row your own way. 

You always told me you couldn’t travel

All the way with me. 

I knew and tried to let you go. 

The more I tried to let you go, the

harder my fingers grasped yours. 

Until that moment I realised I 

wanted to stop rowing if it meant

I would no longer row next to you. 

Shocked by the intensity of my longing

and the tiredness of my arms

I pushed away. 

Straight back into the cold I went. 

The water was fresh and sharp. 

The air filled my lungs

reminding me of the unforgiving pain 

in my limbs for having come this far. 

I suddenly realised how buoyed I was, 

simply by your company. 

‘Tell me you loved me at least once

in this life!’ I pleaded, off you. 

You refused and faded into a silence. 

Leaving me wretched, torn and 

heaving from the emotion. 

It mattered not, to you

that I was still hounded by the demons of the deep. 

That I had to fend for a child without you, now.

Without your counsel. Your wisdom.

Your gentle laughter and sagely perspective. 

I rowed on. intermittently imagining 

I heard your voice. 

I was soon to find my mom rowing by my side. 

My parents and my siblings. They had been

rowing by my side all along. 

Each in their own path. 

Swerving away from mine, perhaps. 

But never leaving my side. 

Perhaps that is what you are, my dear

friend. 

By my side but invisible and soundless. 

How I hope the sun always shines upon you. 

May you never ever know a dreary day in your life; 

is my wish upon you. 

Because that is the sunshine you bore down on me. 

My dear sweet friend… you may never know. 

Born in the Dark

My Kindness..

Was not a weakness it was a strength. 

Was not because you deserved it but 

Because my soul did. 

Was because I picked sunshine over the dark.

Was because I thought my best vengeance

was to never let you dictate who I became. 

Was to show you I could be who you could never be. 

Kind. Soft. Fair. Pliable yet strong. 

You were too foolish to see love as a weakness. 

You were too self-absorbed to examine if you truly deserved my

love and support and prayers and kindness and acceptance. 

I lay you a nice little trap by being good to you when you

Hurt me and enjoyed seeing me squirm. 

I let you fall by constantly telling you I would never give up on you. 

So you could yell and ignore and harm me. 

It is a terrible energy to invite when you cross

someone who served you selflessly. 

It is a cardinal error to harm someone who depends on you

especially if you caused them to be dependent on you. 

You were too vain to notice your time was up. 

Drunk in your power to recognise that the tides had changed. 

Your chance was done. 

Today: you can repent and wring your hands. 

Wish you could go back in time and do it over. 

Try to think where the one good thing happened 

Slipped away amidst your tightest grasp. 

You then realise she slipped out from your grasp. 

You see she meant it when she said she 

loved you and you alone. 

She never cheated or lied or stole or pretended. 

She never gave you up or withheld anything. 

What weapon will you wield against the 

Might from Above?

What hope have you when the 

Heavens have turned their face away from you? 

You can scrounge the scraps for more lies. 

Do your voodoo and send your goons. 

You have not known the fury of the 

Patient Warrior and Selfless Lover. 

We fight for right and not might. 

We do not hold a grudge

but we hold the truth. 

And we.will.not.back.down.from.it. 

So bring your Storm

Bring your dark and dank depths. 

I will dispel it all from within. 

For Darling don’t you see:

I was born in your dank depths and lasted

long enough to see the light. 

Now that I have breathed in love and light

acceptance and grace. 

My fear is displaced by a faith so firm.

There is nothing you can do to shake me.

Not meant to be

There isn't any way to explain it. It is not that neither of us loved with a passion. It is not true that only one of us gave wholeheartedly to the other.

However, it is so strange.. it is as though our fingers were taken apart by the passage of time. It is as though our voices crying out to each other were lost out to the cruel storms of wind that threatened the sunshine.

Cast we were into the ocean, and something so dreadful happened to you. You shook off my hand and took the Devil's instead.

You are like Kay with the ice-queen's shards in your eye.

Cry as I might.. for love, for mercy or for compassion for the child.. you returned me an icy stare.

Daring me to be loving. Daring me to ask for more. Daring me to say one more time... that I loved you.

One final day, the voice died in my throat. That look in your eye was not confusion; it was deadly intent. That twitch of your hand was not confusion: it was a plan guessed before its' time.

You replace real affection with expensive pieces of jewelry. You replace real giving for practised public displays of support. You replace love with a practised hand that makes me suspicious: the man I married was clumsy and passionate... you were too cool and calculating.

Who are you?

Who are you in my bedroom?

Who are you, that calls itself my child's father and masquerades in his room?

No, this union was taken apart from Above. Your heart cried for me but your ego pulled you back. The child in you sought for my hand, but the man in you stubbornly held away from my gaze.

I'm not a woman that can do unto death, unless she is loved, my dear. You are forgiven but you know and I know: this was not meant to be. The hand that broke our Union was from Above: and was neither yours, nor mine.

I'm Done

Didn't you know my dear.
You took 2 years to know you
broke my love for you.

You broke it the day
You refused to let me go home.
The day you hated to see the child in my arms.

The day you failed to call on me to check
if I was dead or alive despite being sick
and alone with a child in the house.

The day you argued about how much electricity
I consumed.. me and your infant child.

The day you determinedly forgot my birthday
The day you insisted on watching me paint the house
despite knowing I was exhausted.

The day you slashed open your arms
with a knife and called for divorce.

Since then. I was a nurse and not your wife.
I was a mother and not your lover.
I held on because I had a child to fend for.
I had aging parents and no job.
I had a family to hold together.

I was warrior looking to keep
her cocoon intact.
I painted and cooked. Sang and cleaned.
Drove and dated you.
For you carried the tag of being my child's father
And that was my everything.

That child was worth dealing with your mania
Your mean spirit and your mediocrity
That child was worth holding on for..
That child is worth it.

For that child: I will withstand your legal battle
For that child: I will refuse to back down.
For that child: I will go on.
For that child: I will not give up. 

Madness

What did you do with the man I loved?
I married a clear pool;
A song that had begun
a bud that was blooming.

You hurt him so long ago
In ways that he didn't even know
You stole his childhood and
replaced it with pain and abuse

You had no right.
Power is no excuse.
Powerlessness is no excuse.
You have no right to inflict pain on
an innocent boy.

Today he is a Man.
Today he is the father of my child.
Today, my heart is with him.

Did you know
he would
one day stop seeing me with kind eyes
And seek to possess the light within me?

That he would stop rejoicing in my smile..
And seek to wipe it off every single time.

That he would lay his unwanted hands on me?
And think of it as his right?

That he would not sleep at night and
turn into a hungry lunatic following me
around the house like a ghost?

That he would shatter my heart like
a mirror and watch the shards in glee?

That the demons you laid in him
would cannibalize his mind?

Did you know you now have blood on your hands?
You have the tears of an innocent woman
and the cries of a young child on your hands now.

Did you know that you are never forgiven?

You are never forgiven for having
allowed your demons to seep into
an innocent child
the child I married and loved.

The boy who never was.
The man who never loved.
The father who never knew.

You are not forgiven.
For driving him into madness.

Leash

A leash is used for something that one desires to control. Leashes on pets keeps them safe; leashes on children is questionable though it is intended to serve the same purpose. What about the kid of leash that isn't exactly visible?

Also called emotional manipulation, it is the tug you feel when you cross an invisible line set for you by the one you love. Ideally; when one loves another: you set the circle so far and wide: that your love sets them free.

I was loved by a man who drew a circle around me so tight, that I couldn't move for fear of losing his affection. A birthday gift gone wrong, a dinner reservation he didn't approve or a baby bed frame that was not second hand. A cleaner's coupon was my most coveted birthday gift and formal clothes to interview were stealthily purchased with money earned through dance lessons.

The noose grew tighter and not looser once I went to work. Add a tightened noose to a greater workload and public humiliation: the knot of love loosens replaced with the rage of a scorned woman.

A woman scorned and humiliated. Her spirit will carry the strength of the winds. Her gaze will pick up every plot and her breath will be fire. She will not rest till she has protected her offspring and she will stop at nothing to tell the truth.

The leash broke when he plotted her destruction. It broke when he forbade her the one thing she held dear: her family. The leash broke when she realized she was not loved: she was enslaved.

Today. No golden card or million dollar mansion can make her go back. A golden cage and a silver leash does not begin to compensate for a child's laughter unfettered; the breath of fresh air outside a home and the sense of lightness with which she can sleep: not fearing a monster entering the bedroom. 

Crawl the full Circle

You know you are completing a full circle when you are back on the same campus that you got engaged to a certain young man. Only this time, you spend time speaking to your mentors about the disappointment, disgust, betrayal and fear with which you have returned. Fear. Retribution. And pure survival was that time.

You know it is a full circle as you look up on the same lawn that you stood 10 years ago telling people of your engagement, only this time, watching red balloons fly into the sky signifying letting go.

On the way home, I watched the paddy fields whiz by and slowly texted one guy I met on campus who turned out to be one of the best friends I've ever made in my life. I slowly unravelled my story to the oldest friend I have; a gnawing fear in my stomach that he wouldn't believe me.

He told me he knew years ago I should have my miserable excuse of a spouse but waited for me to decide.

I think that was the defining, freeing moment. The moment when all the truths I had stalled to speak came rushing forward. The incredible pain. The pain from seeing everything you believed in kicked asunder by a single vicious act of someone you loved more than you loved yourself.

Then came the acceptance. Each day turned into a crawl; waiting for the enemy to reveal themselves. It was odd. One day it was pleas to return. One day it was threatening emails. One day it was my own cry for release from the loneliness. Would my arm please grow back? Would the terrible humid air please give way to the light breeze of California? Would my son please understand why I could never take him back to the USA? Could I please be left alone... alone, dear God.. alone?

I crawled through the day's routines. Meals offered a break in what was otherwise a determined listlessness that earmarked a no-man's land where no one really knew, where I was going to live in 6 months time. Any illusion of free choice was removed by my treacherous heart that still pained to speak his name. My belongings reeked of my bohemian existence as I hated all my indian clothes and sought refuge in clothes that matched how I dressed in San Diego. I spent all my time speaking to lawyers who were visibly pained to hear my 9 year story.

I slowly began hearing words like 'harassment' and 'abuse' and 'trauma' wondering what they had, to do with me. Apparently I was signing off on documents where I swore in a Court of Law that I had been harassed into earning money and alienated from my own family. I sat limply in that bench in Court taking in breaths wondering 'I didn't see this coming.'

The Petition filed and now the marriage suspended. I trudged behind my dad into a train where my visibly exhausted father gulped down some food. I was so stressed I could barely remember which playlist I loved. I reached home the next morning to a son who swung on the wooden swing outside.. running to open the gate and dragged me soon upstairs to play chess. For the first time all week. He looks up at me and says 'Mommy: was I well-mannered and polite to you...? I hope it made you happy!"

I exhaled and nodded a strained smile at him: torn between wonder at his remembering; and the weight of the danger that I was attempting to stave off; that was seeking to steal that very smile.

The Abyss

The Abyss

Step by step into the dark I went

Not knowing where the next step would come from. 

I breathed in the clean air

And felt the toxicity leave me 

Each gut wrenching breath

Bringing with it searing pain and reminding me

That I am embattled.. 

That I have lost.. 

Heed me! Cried the deep and the dark

You shalt not place a single foot further

You are meant to feed on the darkness

And the light that you seek does not exist! 

The wind seemed to stop blowing. 

All the voices of the allies around me.. 

Exhorting me to keep faith.. 

Seemed distant and far. 

My brothers and sisters rallied round me

Willing me to heed their voices and not the darkness

My parents desperately grappling at my fingers.. 

As I willingly stepped toward the abyss.. 

Atleast in that abyss, there was no more pain.. 

Insanity or death… both seemed appealing than

Tolerate that pain and that loss.

The abyss called out to me.. 

Sweet eternal rest was the promise

The chance to start afresh. 

Forget the past and the mistakes 

and horrors.

I fingered the edge of the knife

And felt a faint tug

at my side

Startling black eyes! 

And the high voice of a child called out to me: 

‘But Mommy! I want my mommy!!!’ 

And in a shock the clouds vanished

And the damp fell away

My fingers touched my mothers’

And my brother’s voice filled me in

‘Raje, you will make it!!’ 

‘You’ve already walked the hardest part’ said Meena. 

I struggled to those black eyes 

That softened when they saw me. 

A smile curved those lips

And a comforting weight climbed into my lap. 

We sat there..

Next to the abyss. 

Me and my family. 

Suddenly shone in a light bright. 

The old wounds being brought to light

The old demons being chased away. 

I sat there breathless and broken. 

Knowing little and seeing little

Except aware of that comforting burden on the lap. 

The smell of his hair and the touch of his hand. 

And that word in his voice ‘Mommy.’