Demoness | Jahnavi Gogoi

Goxanis had long, flowing hair, slaying demons who had ungodliness 
spiraling out of their skull.  Rakshasi. That slur had coiled around her like a  

Malati on a bamboo trellis. It was a trenchant rhyme recited by schoolboys
following her like shikras. Often she was prey, hiding beneath a billowing

 penumbra of waves and kinks. Combing her hair, the khuri next door
 would begin her tedious recital of girls gone bad, clicking her tongue, the 

wooden comb snapping in fear, her words were splinters hungry for skin. 
So, girls were fruit? How easily they spoiled just because they did not tie
 
their hair, wore red lipstick and talked to boys, just because they answered
back, while goddesses were pure beings, beautiful, filled with righteous rage.

“I would rather be an Asuri”, she had declared. “I will brush my hair 
 under the blood moon, so that even the Ahant rustles with feeling”.

 It grows on her, the idea of wickedness, as she washes her hair, ankles 
submerged in tepid water, generating sharp bursts of foam and bubbles

 like Cumulonimbus clouds keen on a tempest with lightning, thunder, high
winds. Each ringlet tense like a garrote now released with the witchcraft 

of rebellion. Already, she has crossed over to the dark side, an invincible, 
soul collector who wears her whorls like armor, like a mighty crown. She is a 

 warrior queen ready to take on kingdoms. A curly haired conqueror, ten 
years old, clad in a cotton dress, chasing her tormentors with a branch from

 a Borpat tree, staring at them till they beg for forgiveness, hands folded as 
 if in prayer, kneeling, head bowed in front of a demoness.

Jahnavi Gogoi’s poetry has been published in Coffee and Conversations, Chrysanthemum journal, Tsuri-doro,Zen, Enchanted Garden Haiku journal, Zen Peacemakers, Fresh Out: An Arts and Poetry Collective, The Daily Verse by The Wise Owl, Haiku Corner by The Japan Society, Shadow Pond Journal, The Leaf Journal, haikuNetra, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, Cold Moon Journal, The Usawa Literary review, Borderless Journal, The Chakkar, Poems India, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and so on. She currently lives in Ontario, Canada with her family and loves to read and write poetry. Her debut collection of poetry ‘Things I told Myself’ is available on Amazon.in and Amazon.ca.