To be a woman and to be in love is exhausting by Antara Vashistha
To be a woman
and to be in love
is exhausting
So imagine
when the two elements combine,
You become a coalescence
Of dreams and disappointments
perusing through dictionaries
and the World Wide Web
to craft a language in
which you will love-
It cannot be like your mother-
A presence not so discerning,
You would not settle for
Mere remarks or grunts of annoyance
Or cut fruits in form of apologies,
No,
You will not be your father,
Who at sixty still barely communicates,
You will not be a teacher
Sweeping up fetishes or fantasies,
It is not your job to educate
On the verses of kindness and support,
You would not be a child,
Nor parent or a colleague,
Rather a friend
Forever wondering
How should I presume.
As a Woman in love,
I often
Become the old lady
Who lives round the neighborhood,
Bold in her stance and voice
Yet forever desolate
Unbeknownst
To the apparition of her own existence.
Often,
I am one of Plath’s protagonists
Sitting under a green fig tree,
Manuevering master plans
To love like a man,
To love without falling
Or surrendering my potential
Scheming ways to
Love as I am,
While being what I can
Often
I surrender my senses
Picking up lessons on love
From those who sustain me,
As a woman in love,
I love like my city,
Tracing histories and geographies,
I love like a bookmark
Marking memories to come back to,
I love like the air,
Encompassing in my presence,
I love like the color lavender,
I love like a sunflower,
A storyteller,
And a stalker,
My language becomes fraught
With
Self-built metaphors and somewhat cliched ideas,
I borrow and steal phrases
From those who loved me before
And those who will
Love me someday,
As a woman in love,
I love like a warrior
And I love like a worrier,
I love in gratitude and cognizance,
Demanding nothing less,
Perhaps a little bit more.
A woman writes differently when she is in love by Sehar
A woman writes differently when
she is in love.
Her words sprout
into herbs, distinct shrubs;
small pots smelling
of teakwood and cinnamon.
Men becoming seeds; growing into flowers,
into daisies.
Paper transforming into soil,
baked, bare-skinned
and sunburnt;
people drunk in love
exploring its textured territories.
Sandcastles, hand fetish. Their fingers dug deep into it.
And one day
She isn't anymore,
and all of it is now
simply dry air,
sandpaper-thin breath, dirty laundry,
and spoiled lettuce.
Stale, Rotten, Forgotten.
Almost a thing of the past.
These hands;
her same hands left dry, empty.
And the paper reeking of
People.
And
Men.
And that is where she starts burying them.