Cerebration

THE INHERITANCE: NITHYA MARIAMJOHN

Nithya Mariam John is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at B.C.M College,

Kottayam, India. She loves to write poems, short stories and articles on relevant issues. A few of

her poems and papers have been published in journals and magazines.

 

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She stood on the fringes,

Afraid to take a step forward.

For she knew that if she does,

she will tread the land of aberration.

Madness of the matriarchs of her house

who shun voices of dissent,

to the constructive hands of a woman,

to the tongues and lips of souls

which proclaim festivity of absurdity.

She had seen her mother celebrate lunacy

She had heard her laughter

which they never sealed,

her dance which rage could not falter,

her music which the bare walls could not hold

but crack and finally break on

the twisted heads of the fathers.

Eccentric in her ecstasy

she broke the legs of the table,

where the patriarch sat and wrote

the rules to govern her maiden land.

She opened the cages of the parrots

And rivelled in their flight.

When they tried to bind her hands

She spew venom

-- a woman

born free, in the land of lunatics.

The daughter wanted to keep her lineage.

As she stood on the boundaries

of the liminal space,

frightened by the vast paradise

which lay naked before her eyes.

She heard her mother whisper,

"This is the inheritance of your losses".

 

 

 


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