To become a woman 

I had to change 

not my body 

but my mind 

Learn to inhabit despondency 

because I had to become a woman of that nation 

Where she remains unhappy 

Of that land

Where even after being called a mother

She is buried deep

In innumerable ways

In innumerable spaces 

 

And it is the lure of that land

that makes me feel 

Less of a man

and more like a woman

When I am a man,

Something eludes me

I sneer at the futility of so many things 

for instance, my misshapen posture,

            borrowed ambitions,

the hits we take 

            and the ones we give

freely like precious gifts

 

To be a woman I need to delve

in those caves of darkness 

where only the light of my own body

remains my closest companion

 

To collect in my own heart 

My helplessness, my loneliness

All that is wrapped around my neck 

with the dupatta that restlessly aches

to run wild with the wind

        – None of these things are mine

These suffocating sleeves

These bottoms , tearing into the flesh of my thighs

Burqas

and nations –

Tell me no more than this,

That naked I am in peril 
 

And they all take the place of that danger 
 

I want to be engulfed by that aspiration of a woman

That says she needs none of these things

I need to learn 

             To be fearful 

Of many things, of wanting more than anything 

To place my finger on what I desire

To save myself from that long queue

            Where whistles in ears, drums in navels

            and deep silences of the heart

shriek in horror

I need to escape from that world

Whose maker

Is the one with a pretty head – a bulging penis

Its veins flow with acid
 

I must create my own haven

In the shade of my luminous soul