Q & A with Patriarchy

"Isn't home supposed to be more than a house?

A place where you belong?"

"We put your name on the door. What more do you want?"

"Aren't the people in it supposed to be your own tribe,

Who stands by you no matter what?"

"Not when you don't listen to what they say. Obey, rather than have your own mind."

"How does it feel to be a stranger in your own home?

Unfamiliar with your own people?"

"It's your fault you feel that way."

"How does it feel knowing the place you thought to be your identity was the source of all the traumas you endure, secretly screaming into the pillow every night?"

"Now, don't be so dramatic, women before and after you feel the same!"

"You are only another woman. You must be adjusting to the world of men, Ready to be a second-class citizen."

"But what if she is not tailor-made for it?

What if she wants her own corner in your place?"

"A woman with her own space is dangerously independent. 

We cannot allow that.

She should be under a man's identity."

"To satisfy your fragile egos, she should not demand what is rightful? A place to belong to? A space to breathe that is hers?"

"I see that education has gone to your head. You are demanding absurd things like equality and respect."

© Suranya

In Love?

 I sit beside you 

Watching you read, 

And I miss you terribly.

Do I make sense?

I miss the time you held my hand 

Every time we sat together.

Now the cushion between us 

Screams silently of bridges 

We never cross.

We stay together but never indulge. 

In meaningful conversations like before.

The only words spoken are in need 

And it makes me wonder 

Am I still in love with you? 

Remember the times you 

Couldn't get your eyes off me?

Now you barely look up from your phone.

Remember when an accidental touch.

Excited our cores?

I don't feel like that anymore.

Do habits do away with feelings? 

Or comfort do away with efforts? 

It shouldn't be this way, right? 

When two people are in love?

© Suranya

Improbable

 I prefer to stay in my head 

Where you and I are still a thing.

The storyline fits every love song 

That I saved in our shared playlist.

Sometimes we are star-crossed lovers

Sometimes childhood friends 

Sometimes we meet and part 

Never to see each other again.

I know your smile. 

Your deep brown eyes.

I know your favourite food. 

And how you react to certain flowers.

There's a lock on the door. 

Of this world that belongs to your thought

The words are my key 

To let others into your realm.

Yet I must be careful. 

They should never know all our secrets.

© Suranya

In-Toxic-ation

 I place a rose on the tomb of Us, 

The petals wither 

And the thorns remind me of you 

Hurting each other till we last.

I burn from within in unfulfilled desire. 

Looking for a purpose in the debris of lost hope. 

But then comes the wind that puts out the fire 

Forcing me to move on. 

I resist. I protest. I can't forget.

I won't forgive.

With each step that I was forced 

To drag back into your chessboard

I leapt forward twice.

I learnt to let go, 

I was taught to forgive.

I am resilient, fighting till I burn 

Raising my voice for things 

That only mattered to me; 

Only to realise, I was a kid then, 

A rebel without a cause 

Who was I to fix you?

Hope that you treat the next woman better? 

By forgiving someone who never apologised.

© Suranya

Tomb of my Past

 I can only sleep when the world is awake.

I spend my darkness in your realms.

I burn the pages I wrote about you 

Only to rewrite them every night.

Is it a disease or a habit now?

I can't really tell.

My insomnia grows every single day. 

And now I can barely tell reality from dreams.

You seem so real, like I can stretch my arms 

And touch you. Yet I can't.

I long for you yet 

I don't want you near me.

I fear it will break the illusion of you 

That I created around my world.

You are perfect in it, the way I want 

Like the role play of a character in my story.

You are like the forgotten lines 

Of the poems I once knew by heart.

A familiar face in a stranger's body 

You are pictures, memories and places 

And a Tombstone of regret 

Over the grave of my past.

© Suranya

The Greatest Writer

 "The typewriter tap dances 

Right in the centre stage 

Where the protagonist meets

Their fate."

The writer pauses 

In between spaces, 

Pages to be changed 

Ink to be replaced

Often wondering about

The One Greatest Writer of them all.

The One whose commas continue life 

And periods end chapters good and bad. 

Tragedy, comedy, romance and drama 

Sometimes thrillers and dark desire 

They can write any genre without a care.

Are we all protagonists in life?

Most aren't in books. 

Some are just side characters existing. 

Driving others' stories.

What if the writer is one of them?

Never a protagonist in her own life? 

Could something be more nightmarish

Than that?

© Suranya

Intoxication

 I cry on my pillow with silent screams

I turn the music up

Hoping it makes your voices fade away.

I know they are in my head 

As they haunt my solitude each night.

Your promises and apologies drown 

In the lyrics and enchanting voice 

That now engulfs my world.

Reality vanishes into clouds.

Of words that shape stories.

As I pick up my quill

Dip it in ink and begin to write, 

The paper soaks in the lines.

I am not me anymore

This story was never mine to begin with.

They say you need to be intoxicated

To feel above it all.

Aloof. Dissociated.

But here I am, pushed and shoved 

With my back to the wall.

Shouting that I can't care less 

Afraid that nobody could hear me.

You all made me like this. 

Pushed me over the edge 

All of you, the sweet talkers, promise breakers

Who never stuck by when I needed you. 

Today, I know no drug can harm me 

No habit can compel me. 

For Hurt is the most powerful intoxication of all. 

And heartbroken I am, in the toxicity called life.

© Suranya