I never learned to perform femininity. It scared me.
But I am feminine. I feel it in me.
The feeling is like an ocean — I can’t quantify it.
It spills out when I care for someone or something. If you want to label nurture as feminine, then I am full of it.

If you want to see it as something sexual, then so be it.
I feel it inside and out. It was in me even before I knew my body.
I never had any doubt about it, but the performance of it scares me.
It drains my soul.

Yet, as hypocritical as I am, there are days when I feel so eased into the performance of it that I seem like a seasoned actor — without any experience, as if I had it all in my DNA.
As if I don’t have to try. Just taking part is the act itself.

I miss thinking about the universe, black holes, and asteroid belts.
When I was young, my mind was an open sky, vast and endless, where galaxies spun in silence.

I used to lose myself in the stars, but now my thoughts are filled with me.
Me, me, me… Is this self-obsession because of the artist in me?

My universe shrank until it was just me at the center.
They say there’s narcissism in self-hatred.

Does Mom love me? What did Dad think of me? Do they find me annoying?
Will anyone ever see me for who I am, the artist behind the veil of my own creations?

I try to reach for that wonder, but I can’t. It’s gone — lost.
I miss the feeling of being small, of being part of something vast.

Now, I’m stuck in a loop of self-doubt and fear, unable to reach the wonder that once I kept so dear.

“Elysian Nightmare” is a deeply personal poem inspired by my journey through codependency and the struggle to break free from it. This piece reflects the turmoil and emotional conflict of clinging to a love that has become both a sanctuary and a source of profound pain. It explores the complexities of devotion, the pain of separation, and the hope for redemption amidst the ruins of a once-sacred bond.

My god, my heaven, the world ended when he didn’t look at me.
Banished from his palace ended up on his streets.
All of this just because I told him what I wanted to be.

An older man, wounded by his loved ones. Who wouldn’t cry for him?
I cried for him.
Good daughter, wiser beyond her years, just a kid but doesn’t want to act like it.

He was my north star, my religion, and my only light. I was fool enough to spite him.
Got plunged to the ground without any warning.
My breath was as withered as our conversations.
One talk, one confession, flipped my life into an elysian nightmare.

All this was just a nightmare.

He talks; I listen.
He charms, I fawn.
My hollow laughter echoes through the hall.
Shame and pride crashing on my empty heart.

I saw myself disappear into thin air.
Swallowed my words, my tears, and all of who I am.

Guilty, guilty, the disgrace will not leave me.
Abandoned by your gods does not look good on your resume.
The ones who committed this sin were never the ones that were given pity.

If I can’t be seen by him, I want no one to.
I am a loyal dog.
Till my last breath, I will bark.
for his love and his content smile.

Couldn’t bear the emptiness, so I ran to another land.
Stopped haunting him so I could give myself penance.

Hid away, licked my wounds, tore away my skin.
walked the streets of Bangalore with an open wound.
I couldn’t smell the freedom in the air.
I stopped hearing tunes; the words wouldn’t pop when I hummed.
The dread hit me harder than my mother’s curse.
I lost my words, my music, and my muse.
If I can’t have my paradise, I don’t want anything other than that.

It’s been months since I got his call.
felt alive like I was in a free fall.
My god wanted to hear me.
He suffered without me.
He wanted me to join him. Live in his hell with him.
He sounds defeated. The end of his words had a tinge of misery in it.
Still, he wouldn’t admit it; he wouldn’t change. He will suffer in his own cage.

I will sit by him and tell him sweet nothings in the hope he will love his life again.
Wait until he puts another gash in my chest so I can learn my lesson.
and wise up to not love a wounded god ever again.

A Man can touch you , a man can own you, a man can rule the world. A Man just can. Wherever I go, I can see it in their faces the lack of something that we women carry within us.

I can hear it in their voices sometimes. Something I see women holding in their throat is missing in theirs. They get irritated and they think we are the disturbance to their world . The world that their gods gave them to enjoy and for women to be born in.

I can go on pretending that it doesn’t bother me and delude myself that I can live as fully as a man does and not be restrained by his well woven laws and beliefs. But I can’t, it’s in the air, it’s in everyone’s stare.

They will watch you, eye you, weigh you and you will stand for the display, you will stand in front of the jury. Asking the same men for justice for what they will punish you with humiliation.

Or they will kill you and make you a god to lock you in a room as a stone, a symbol of tragedy because women can be only two things: a goddess or a whore. In his books, you can’t be both.

She is not human. She is just a woman.

Note to readers:

I wrote this after hearing the news that Allahabad court said Marital rape is ‘no offence’ if wife is 18 or older. I had something churning in my stomach while watching it in the news and I thought I should spit it out. So, if you were looking for context, here it is.