Issue 09
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I am an ecosystem, all the flora and fauna caresses, bruises, burrows and sprouts from my body. I am a microcosm. You will find yourself speckled, reflected in the monolith around the aperture of my eyes, in Belladonna stupor. I am one and several. I am Cassiopeia, vain, boasting about my daughter’s iridescence. I am Andromeda vulnerable, punished for being beautiful, admonished for someone else’s fault. Judged for just being a girl, tied to a rock naked like Prometheus but I am not lusted for my liver but eyed for my gender. Pinned for my voluptuousness, but saved. This story has a good ending. Some slay the Medusa yet also untie and marry the damsel in distress, loving and hating. I am also the other woman, despised, her kind still finish off the fairy tale by turning Phineus to stone, but no one applauds. The former flies to the sky and morphs into stars in the galactic walk of fame. Pigeonholes being too small to contain me. |
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Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry journal, the punch magazine, Efiction India, Ink drift, The blue nib, North of oxford, Indian rumination, Awake in the world anthology by Riverfeet press and Rock and sling. She had been chosen as ‘Poet of the week’ on Poetry superhighway, finalist of poetry matters project contest 2019 and second place winner of blue nib chapbook contest 2018. |
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