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Bhumika Honparkhe Poem
When their daughter asks them about the Renaissance,
they’ll tell her about Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’, Andreas Versailus and Nicholas Copernicus but I wish them to tell her how Galileo Galilei was imprisoned by the Priests for declaring facts against their theological principles and how Martin Luther led the Reformation.
I need them to tell her how Michelangelo wrote a sonnet about misery and the distasteful side of his work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Will they tell her about the barbarous Crusades right before the Renaissance and the French wars of religion?
I want them to tell her how Mussolini came up with something as inhuman as Fascism and how Hitler killed Yahudis for being who they are and how it’s recognized as the most unfortunate event of the record.
I want them to explain how religion played an appearance in most of the disastrous wars in the history, but they won’t.
I want to her to learn about Humanism before any other ism but they won’t tell her about Secularism.
They’ll teach her religion and how supreme their religion is, but they won’t talk about Communalism because they’ll be too apologetic.
She’ll read about the Indus Valley, the Mughals, the Marathas and the British. She’ll ask them about the Partition of India in 1947 and they’ll address it to her as history but she’ll also ask them about the 2002 and 2020 communal riots in the country and they won’t reveal about it. They won’t discuss it to her as history because they’ve been a part of it, their families have been the reason.
I want them to tell her they were too busy getting tattoos and piercings done, figuring their lives and love of their lives out and that they were extremely busy plotting their Vegas trip and when she demands them about the Renaissance in India, I wish them to tell her how they’ve been performing their roles by spreading communal hatred through social media stories and electing Fascist leaders.
They’ll keep feeding their religion to her
so they can use her as a medium against secularism
and finally one day
when she chooses to not support them any longer,
She Will Become The Renaissance.
Copyright © Bhumika Honparkhe | Year Posted 2020
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Bhumika Honparkhe Poem
We lived in a small room
Near the river
Ammi and I
She said she wasn’t pretty
I can’t imagine of anything
More graceful than her
She would devote hours
peering at the door
writing something
in her dialect
I never met my Abba
Ammi said he lived
across the stream
She writes to him everyday
so that he’ll visit us one day
She used to tell
what’s broken
gets weaker day by day
All these years
I only saw her getting tough.
I flew to the capital
for high-school
I found you
That year it rained
like never before
And I was happier
Than ever before
Whenever it rains
it reminds me of you
You left too soon
It tastes like autumn since
Black tea
I remember
how you preferred it
Whatever you liked
I loved it too
And whatever you
fell out of love with
I stopped loving it too
I don’t love myself now
Ammi used to say
Wild creatures don’t
need to be tamed.
Science taught me
"A human body is
a group of organized tissues."
Science has an exposition
for everything
and all I understand
are metaphors
Ammi used to say
you grow into the person you love
I turned into the difficult goodbyes
the quiet mornings that follow
the anxiety right after waking up
the cities left behind
the missed buses
the delayed flights
I became the unwanted replies
the longed video calls
the songs you tune in to cry
the defeats you hate
the victory you crave
the storm before a shower
the silence after a fight
I’m the Monday blues
and the Friday night
I’m the one you look for
in an empty room
And the one
you run away from
I’m me; I’m you; I’m us
Science has an exposition
for everything
And all I understand
are metaphors.
Ammi has aged now
In her winter-white hair
She looks beautiful than ever
With her shuddering hands
She still writes
It's been years now
He doesn’t seem to come back
Neither do you.
So I choose to abandon writing
Maybe then, you will.
Bhumika.
Copyright © Bhumika Honparkhe | Year Posted 2020
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Bhumika Honparkhe Poem
Don’t misread me with magnificent black of the eye;
I’m the mascara flowing through cheeks while you cry.
I’m not a part of your puzzle to achieve it,
I’m the piece which might crush you into a thousand ones.
I’m not Shakespeare’s Daffodils or one of his sonnets;
I’m Franz Kafka’s unpublished manuscripts.
Don’t mistake me for your fantasy,
I’m the burnt and destroyed pages of your diary.
I’m not the warmth of cigarettes after sex, I’m chaos.
Don’t distract me for shiny morning faces;
I’m the tired, sleep-deprived face with countless acne.
I’m not your therapist;
I’m the enduring impressions of your wounds.
I’m not smooth hair;
I’m the coarseness and the damages of your feet.
I’m not your mother’s gentle care,
I’m the tanned arms and the unwanted facial hair.
I’m not the fragrance after a shower;
I’m the perspiration after hard work.
I’m your lazy weekends and rejected love.
I’m not long lasting ties,
I’m the aggression after a heartbreak.
I’m no valentine’s rose;
I’m the ammunition in a war.
I’m not the Instagram stories and captions;
I’m those drafts you never craved to post.
I’m the hangover that accompanies, not the hilarious late night parties.
I’m not what they discern,
I’m your hidden frustration.
I’m no beach to your roaring anxiety;
I’m unwanted break-ups, unanswered calls and deleted messages.
I’m not what you pretend to be,
but I’m what you’re sorry to see.
So don’t misinterpret me
for yet another shoulder to break down on
because I am not your beautiful falsity,
I am your harsh reality.
Copyright © Bhumika Honparkhe | Year Posted 2020
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