AFTERMATH (to consuming six glasses of orange juice): MEENA KANDASAMY Next Poem:....................................................................................................................................... Back to Poetry Index

 

the next morning in school during your
English exam you take permission to go to
the toilet where you throw up all the white
and creamy breakfast milk. only it tastes
sour and looks like bits of maggoty curd.
weeks later, you get to know two things
one of which will change your life for ever.
first, you scored the highest in the English
exam. second, you became a gossip item.
you still don't know what affects you more.

because of your boldness and brashness
and bunking classes your ulcerated vomit
is taken for morning sickness. the sourness
extends when you hear hushed whispers
passing around. girls younger than you,
point at you and speak such banal secrets.
in staff-rooms, and in ungainly corridors
teachers chatter of your child, so vividly
imagined in the backdrop of your really
empty womb. slander is a slaughterhouse.

even best-friends seek answers as the
rumors inflame. your anger is mistaken
to be toward a crude imagined lover who
disowned you. you know the nauseous
truth of your thighs: you are virgin. But
evidence will not be revenge, for, so many
smoky eyes implore you to supplicate, to
admit alleged truths. impeaching faces lay
down rules: don't shout or scream, but
swallow the shame. next, confess the sin.

sin yes they will shred your innocent life to
that. yes you may fume or froth or boil or
simmer. yes you are their staple soup they
need you just this way yes your fury takes
its toll annihilating you not them. yes anger
and hatred seethe in your untamed tresses
yes you know how gossip chokes even the
tethered dreams. yes something breaks in
you. yes dear yes you start the brute search
for sleeping pills and chaste suicide ideas.

Meena Kandasamy is an activist-writer, poet and translator based in Chennai, India. She has served as the Editor of The Dalit, a bimonthly alternative magazine of the Dalit Media Network, Chennai. Kandasamy is an established translator, translating between Tamil, Hindi and English. Meena Kandasamy's original essays and literary criticism have been published in many magazines and journals. Eminent Indian poet, Kamala Das wrote of her poetry: "Once again after long years of search I came into contact with the power of honest poetry when I was reading Meena Kandasamy's anthology of verse. Revelations come to her frequently and prophecies linger at her lips. Older by nearly half a century, I acknowledge the superiority of her poetic vision." Kandasamy is actively involved in the dalit movement and dreams of a casteless India.

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