Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Shloka Shankar- Two Poems


Don’t Tell Me

it’s going to be okay.
Stop thrusting

your belief systems
down my throat.

I’ve seen spite go around,
skip a generation, and then
come back to bite me.

Don’t tell me
"You’re almost there!" 
Lies breathe down my
neck and slice the air. 

I’ve been vaccinated
against hope for too long now –

a word hurled at me
so mindlessly,
accusingly, almost. 



Normal

i didn’t know what to say.
they looked at me
with their expectant faces.

it was time to tell them
the truth. about everything.

the breaches of someone
i was asked to forgive,
turn a blind eye to,
and act like nothing
had happened.

i was still normal. it
happens to girls
all the time. most
don’t get scarred
as much as me.

they call it the past
for a reason. it’s never
meant to be spoken
about.

a red-tape tied
like a noose
around my body.



Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer from India. She loves experimenting with Japanese short-forms such as haiku and haibun, as well as found/remixed poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Of/with, ex-ex lit, Otoliths, Bones, the other bunny, and so on. She is also the founding editor of the literary & arts journal, Sonic Boom.


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