I contained myself when I was 9 in a burqa, so I could hide the stench of blood clots my dad decorated on my back. I learnt to shrink in a space only in heaven they heard me sing

I have lost too much of myself to keep people in my life. Can you see, I'm nothing but a backbone now? How dare you tell me to bend?

Thank me for not setting the whole world on fire for what it did to me.

When I asked for help, all I got was hurt as if I was snow white on a poisoned apple I had to became the witch.

My Nani told me, every woman is a lamb after dark and every man out there is hungry Do you see? I am still here after he took chunks off me when he put his long nails on my neck.

There's still so much of me left.

Do you see the statue they made of me in the clouds? Do you hear the collective consciousness whisper ideas to me? Do you feel the mark mercy left on my forehead? Do you smell the stench of a thousand suns on my skin? Do you taste the burn when you savour me and tell me to go back to the ice as if I was a corpse And he was alive?

I can't live where I want to in my budget but a family can? The bias that house owners have is just pathetic. I live in a house currently which is quite an inconvenience to me. I tolerate it because of my freedoms. But I realize now, my freedoms have been illusionary. They're dependent on such basic things.

I tolerate it when the voltage issue makes my house look like a dimly lit Pecos or for some a haunted house. I tolerate bad plumbing. I am constantly reparing things around the house. Rich people keep disrupting my routine. Nobody helps clean but everybody helps destroy this house's floors, switches, my mugs, and walls. Some rich vegan girl who hates adult lady terms broke the toilet seat and has not paid for it. She drank a lot of almond milk in my house for free.

I asked a bunch of painters to come paint my house and they'd rather paint for Instagram than the friend who gave them gigs that made them famous.

I'll do it myself.

I want carpets but it's ground floor and there's too much dust plus my friends seem to never respect the fact that wet shoes are not welcome inside. I want creepers but there's no direct sunlight. Artificial light is at the mercy of poor connection in this house. A few basic things in this house are so dysfunctional. I don't even have a locker to keep anything locked.

I want to cook but there's no air in the damn kitchen. They've closed the chimney. No exhaust fan. Everything sticks because of it. Dust on top of that.

Dry sinks, welcome cockroaches. Keeping the drains clean is also an issue?

There are no shelves with doors. There's no logical arrangement to keep anything in the kitchen.

The hall has out of place really fucked up shelf that keeps hitting me. The mattress on the floor restricts me from brooming because it is too damn heavy.

I hate changing the lights in this house again and again. White light looks bad. Yellow light looks bad. What lights should I put in this damn house?

The shower has an issue with pressure despite me having a seperate tank. I mean for fucks sake I can't even dance in the shower without hitting my elbows against something.

You live on the mercy of when water comes. Tank gets filled.

And it is bloody unpredictable.

My boyfriend says it's alternative days but it's been proven wrong too.

Plus storing is an issue. There's no place for a drum.

I can't keep the washing machine in the toilet. It's a second hand machine that is automatic and cost me only 5k. Have to keep this beloved piece of legend outside the house. People on the street can see in my house easily if I just keep the door open.

There's always water leaking somewhere in this house no matter much you tighten the valves.

I don't have a quiet corner for writing except at nights – 2:30am.

I feel like I'm suffocating in my house.

I have no curfew. I have no restrictions yet it feels like a prison of micro aggressions.

I adjust but I'm so tired. I want basic shit at least. Sunlight but no fucking noise and dust.

All the basic shit is with landlords who charge too much or only rent to families.

PGs have restrictions.

I need a room of my own. The kind that Virginia Woolf described.

Convince me with a song To long for what you want me to long Sell me myself Everybody take your pound of flesh

Convince me with a song To hope for what you want me to hope for Buy me my time Everybody go ahead and dine

Convince me with a song To wait for what you want me to wait for Love me more than myself Nobody waits this long for help

feels like crossing paths with a troll under the shade of a post that generalizes my gender's position in the world as nothing but a tool You say the main purpose of a woman's life is to have children and wish you were aborted You'd rather give benefit of doubt to Andrew Tate than to all the women he hurt You'd rather believe Eve was “made” for Adam than believe they are one being seperated by loneliness

When the padestel we built for people isn't strong enough to hold their humanity and they fall We must not strangle them with the garland of fantasy, frame them, hang them with the accusation of not being “woman enough”

“Take a break.” Don't use the term “break” for something that doesn't... How do I break something that doesn't bend to my will? How do I take something that was specifically designed to punish people like me if we got too comfortable with keeping it?

A thing said When I said, before paper, the word was a currency If that's the case maybe poetry can be money again

But i know that when the truth is told I'll long for what I want as I get old I have pissed off everybody to get halfway through When will I realize, Vienna waits for rue

Slow down, I'll never be fine I have been pushed off the margins Every damn time Hope's a fleeting fling on most nights Most nights, Too bad but it's this life I grief Everybody is so full of themselves possessed by greed When I'm right I'm still wrong, you know I can't seem to fight this fight

Limited rations and crowded bus rides I'm a fool looking to be ratified My pockets full of dreams that don't fit right When will I realize, Vienna waits for rue

Slow down, I got severed ties My phone is the only connection with the world I could find It's all right, I lost my innocence when I was two When will I realize, Veinna feeds on rue And I know when the truth is told I'll forever long for what I want as I get old I have pissed off everybody to get halfway through I realize, my Vienna waits for rue

Imagine me with a birthmark on my arm and a teenmark/mole on my forehead declaring me Hindu belonging to Hindustan Imagine me as Kohinoor stolen from my mother and kept in captivity for five years by my father Now, imagine me leaving the museum

Imagine me as Cleopetra being overqualified to be married to Ceaser but not enough to be Queen of Egypt Imagine me as Musa unable to speak the language of the Jews Imagine me as Isa, a carpenter who died not on a cross but because he became allergic to wood

Imagine my dreams stuck in a dreamcatcher unable to decide whether they are nightmares or dreams Imagine my hopes standing in a queue at the cliff waiting for their turn to jump out of existence Imagine my turns on an unknown road when I take a right, I'm still wrong

Why does a socialist government need reminding I am its citizen Why do you make me pay for your salary? Why does it need reminding that I have lived here all my life And I plan to die here Why does it need me to prove who I am and what I have done again and again Shouldn't you already know? You gave me away to white rabbits with white collars and their machines can predict when I bleed

Imagine me, crying in my room, humming, the land of make believe doesn't believe in me.