My Mother's Daughter

Wanted to post this yesterday, it being Women's Day and all, but with the EO still battling his fever and the YO gearing up to succumb to it, I never got a chance. Anyway, better late than never, I hope...

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My Mother’s Daughter

I am Eve’s daughter.
Yes,
I am she.
Still punished,
castigated
raked over the coals.
For what?
A bite?
Lust?
Running around naked?

For being human?
For
being
woman?

The joke’s on you.
I revel in my body;
it’s curves,
dips
and valleys.
I feel,
I think,
I lust,
I live.
I have a brain!
No puppet am I!
I love making love,
having sex,
making babies
having them too…
The act of creation
is mine!

I am Eve’s daughter.

I am Draupadi’s girl-child.
Her blood
is on your hands.
Her shame,
smeared in your psyche.

She whored for five men,
the God of Fire
her witness.

Not enough.
Humiliated,
stripped
shamed
and exhibited
in front of the lusting world’s eyes.

And for what?
For being beautiful?
desirable?
For bedding five men?

For being a queen.
For
being
woman.
And,
because
you
could.

Yet,
it was not enough.

Today,
You murder me in my mother’s womb;
drown me in tubs of milk when I’m born.

I dwindle in number.

Who will wed you now?
Who will you rape
in your marital bed?
Don’t expect me to whore
for you again.

I have a voice.
I will laugh,
scream
and curse.

I am not my mother.

I am Eve’s daughter,
Draupadi’s girl-child
am I.