The Woman I've Become

by Suchita Senthil Kumar

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Wisps of my hair turn
into serpents with eyes
of obsidian stone, their
tongues dripping with 
venom from my blood. 

My flesh arose from clay,
and not from that man's ribs.
I become an abode for jackals,
while thistles and briers
breathe in my sternum. 

I lament standing atop
a scarlet river of bodies,
my ugly screams turn
into death warnings 
for all those I've loved. 

My veins and arteries
weave themselves into
tapestries of thread
and blood painted with
sprawling stories of my sins.

I carry the moon in my eyes
and the night sky in my lies
with fingers that kiss the dead.
I wane from maiden to mother
to a crone in gleaming grace.

I wear my Mother's anklets 
with beads of her flesh and 
diamonds of her dried tears.
In the wake of eighteen,
this is the woman I’ve become. 

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Suchita Senthil Kumar (she/her) is an aspiring writer creating chaos. She was born in Bengaluru, 18 years ago. Her work has been featured by Live Wire, WayWords Literary Journal and Ice Lolly Review among others. She was a student of UNICEF's Voices of Youth Mediathon '21. She tweets as @suchita_senthil.