Mother

Motherhood has always been one of my most revered dreams.

Just because I was not born as a woman, (or a woman-born-woman, as the radical feminist term goes) this would probably confuse or mystify or even shock some people to understand this strange craving. To be pregnant or to even visualize myself as a mother (or any other individual, who was not genetically born with a womb or as a 'woman') subverts the set norms of medical and culture history, its shunned as 'immoral' and even 'disgusting' "strange' and strings of other such bullshit but of course it does not bother even ONE bit in painting my heart out. I did a similar sketch sometime back, which is on this blog, called MOTHER and this painting comes several months after that. I am wiser, more blue like the watercolors and also, hungrier than ever before. The above art work is watercolors and mixed media (a style that I absolutely love and personally relate a lot with. I am also a mixed media, kitschy thing you know). Having a life, breathing inside someone, curling toes, winking lashes in your womb- I have never gotten over the visceral intensity of this. How insane is this. How beautiful is this and as a transwoman, a woman, I have always imagined something like this for me. And I know this sounds cliched, but really, a woman is so powerful and not only because she can create a life inside her, but even around her with such effortless grace. To all the beautiful woman, love and much more of it:)

Maybe this also comes from overly-hyped stereotype that to be a woman, one has to bear a child and for decades this has been a major tool of discrimination held against transwomen (and even gays and lesbians, for not procreating. Yes?). But this is not about trans politics and feminism. There are other places to discuss that.

This is for me.

There are my dreams. This is my world. My passion and night colours.

So, who likes cheap Indian men?

I will tell you some truths.

I like strayed Indian men who play it tough
And their ripped asses sing fuck-you-here-right-now through the wrinkled jeans.
I like you in police uniforms,
And I like you in dark, grimy tea stalls
Where you swap Centre Fresh and Rajnigandha paan masala as you smoke.
You look at me with a coy grin, your drink still virgin and I can eat your whispers
you pierce into your own mouth.
Why don’t you think it aloud?
Use Hindi. Say chootiya like you own it, let it smell sweaty. Remind me of tousled pubic curls. Public toilets.
Take me to cheap guest houses, where fans creak and dark bathrooms that have never tasted electricity.
I will scratch your back, it’s tired and it wants me. I will step over your white collar intentionally.
Your tongue preaches morality to my nipples. So you are saint, really.
Now this is another drag act- you as a holy saint with a greasy chest and me, the dancer. The tempting vamp.
Act chaste and disturbed, I am decadent and bad ass. I will trap you anyways. (Rock the bed again).
Let’s scandalize the hotel waiters and give them some joy.
When we are done, light a Ganesh beedi and help me understand:


Why do I like such strange things?

Ruler of my heart

The ruler of my heart is only swallowed through music
And gentle, incandescent stares through the candles at night.
He won’t kiss you, won’t steer his legs up your sheet, won’t wonder how many more nights this will happen.
He will torture your impatient soul, until it bleeds.
That’s love too. The bloody kind.

Going away in me

Go away in me

Like dew drops on strawberries, and I bear your dreams on my skin.
Color my hands with plum flowers,lilies and pink leaves. My breath lost in your cuddle.
These hills murmur a story, slowly, through the grainy sky. Rainy scent on our wrists and monkeys chattering on the house rail. Somebody wants to forget their future; somebody wants to melt their heart. Washing machines churn empty wombs and Billie Holiday slits her throat.

You are a part of this story. Come away closer to me.

My heart has just started talking.

Song of a bare body

Lights tasted bitter on the hospital stretcher.

The smell of phenyl and Dettol swirled into your stomach
And you felt wriggling worms in your fingers.
You were there to be laid open like a specimen. People want to know that you are normal.
They want to check if your skin sweats profusely as theirs and if your breasts can lactate.
They want to peep into your underwear. What is that you are hiding?

They want to check if you have an unnatural body.

But you writhe under your skin, boiling venom.
You think of the happiness that you once had.
You dream of the flittering smoke that drifted above your head. You splash the lost giggles on your wrists.
You dream of love and you breathe.
You breathe. Breathe.
Waiting to be freed. Think of pink saris and smiling gods. Turmeric in the air. Festive bells.
You stare obliquely at the wall clock. It tells you that the inspection is over.
The doctor has removed his rubber gloves and he tells you put back your shirt.
A whiff of faded perfumed hits you as button yourself.
Its the same shirt your mother gifted.
The same mother who is waiting to know your psychiatric reports. You think of graveyards and raped corpses.
You chew on your anger slowly, the people outside are waiting to see you again.
These people love to witness drama and especially when its about a body like yours.
You are an outlaw. Some cryptic code, that must be deciphered.
You pass their sight like a creature. One of them grabs your hand, you stare mildly into another direction.
But something calms you....
Maybe its the awareness of your own strength. Your third eye that has been left open.
Or knowing that

There nothing is to lose anymore.

I am answering you.

So here I come with my heart lumped in sleeves, bleeding words for you
To be read. I don’t always need your hands to touch me; your verbal wisps are enough.
They are withered, creamy faces of that haunting longing…that drums in ecstasy.
That stretches like a boiling wound from Himalayas to the seas,
Lap up in arms and flows down like a maddening tune…
That choirs up with the songs of the streets and the air that frisks between your lids.
I will give up everything to let you hear me once. Or the seamless fragrance of an official sorrow, that sits between my thumbs and stares at the notepads. Steals moonlit roads and the street lights to be blazed in an endless spool of your dreams. I am in those dreams too, whirling right next to you.
Where I shock and scare and spit and swoon.
This is all because, I love so much.

Dirty queer poet

Mystified..

You sit with a post coital cigarette and write everything dirty with the whirling smoke..
Draw a penis with magical heads and little pounding hearts
That would immerse themselves in poetry and not just anal pods..
Or jump at it like a discounted product because it suddenly shines
In the dark with tags of sweat. Swear.
Dirty, dirty.....
You build globules of grimy, lascivious stories
And crane them on breasts the next to you meet a man..
But it’s the cigarette to blame for all the sex that ink consumes..
It’s this someone there, crept well beneath within, to fill in something..
To make more meaning than the ritualistic words..and see things apart
From what eyes derive...and use something more lubricating
Than spit.

Use green apple condoms
And abbreviate the used wrappers in solitary dust bins.