To write a poem about womanhood | Subarna Mohanty

To write a poem about womanhood,
you have to become a woman first. 
And to become one, you have to survive 

one of the world’s best-rehearsed rituals
of stealing away a young girl’s girlhood 
by a touch 

in the shadows. You have to let go 
and accept defeat to the grabbing hands. 
An invisible, black mark will stay 

on your soul. You have to carry it. 
You can neither cry nor scream
like the many others. You are allowed 

to bleed, but not because of the blade
with which you cut into your skin.
You have to walk around and pack lunchboxes,
and not talk,

not speak of the hands. You have to live 
like nothing happened. 
Nothing happened in the shadows. 

You have to live 
to write this poem about that woman. 
About all women.
About womanhood. 

Subarna Mohanty is an engineering graduate, currently on a break from life, asking necessary questions, introspecting and finally, actually learning. She lives in Cuttack, Odisha. She divides all her time between well-crafted fiction, well-directed cinema and her not-so-well-organised thoughts. Her poetry has featured previously in Spark literary magazine.