CHORUS:
She is the Red She-Devil
Bleeding bad blood from between her legs.
At fourteen she was married off; and
her first child, a girl, was fed to dogs
Her second was a stillborn
At sweet, sweet sixteen she was sold a sex slave
and at seventeen, she's swimming for her life.
MONOLOGUE IN WATER:
Am I not a woman who knows infinity?
I was raped those many times
After a while I just wanted to say:
"I don't mind the rape, just don't beat me that hard"
…
…
Should I have killed myself?
Should this body - mine yet still not mine - self-destructed?
,
O I was a good girl
Never did I raise my voice while they beat me
All's justified in the name of God maybe…
*
And now I swim for a refuge - a place to call my own
Call no woman a ‘citizen' - we're all without lands.
EPILOGUE: DEATH IN WATER
She died in water
with those red pearls flowing out of her vagina
No one to mourn
embraced in the depth of the oceans, just a little less deeper
than the sufferings of women…
Call no woman a ‘citizen' when she swims against the tide.
Call no woman a refugee when she's dead…
Souren Mondal
September 11,2016
A poignant write describing the wretchedness and misery of a girl tormented and abused from the time she begins to show the womanliness in her! She is finally dumped to the drains as a prostitute....! She bears the stigma and yields to all sexual abuse without resistance just to live on! Existence is crucial and she is without a shelter or supportive hands! As before you have wielded your pen once more to alert the readers to the criminal tendencies of the society where a woman is mostly made a helpless prey! Glad to see you back.... Souren!
Dear Souren, again you prove by this poem here that you can touch the hearts of those worrying about the present and the future of our humanity.We feel through the lines of the poem the urgent need of a revolutionary education of our feelings and thoughts as far as it concerns women's position in our societies.
Heart rending graphic description of a woman's sufferings that hog the headlines of newspapers everyday and even what goes unnoticed.Outstanding piece of poetry. Thanks: She died in water with those red pearls flowing out of her vagina No one to mourn
Many of us, especially in the States, can't really imagine the plight of refugees, let alone women throughout this world. Poems, such as yours, may not instantly change the paradigm, but keep these issues in the public consciousness, hopefully adding to the pace of change.
A very poignant piece of writing. A suffering woman's plight is put into words that shake the reader hard. That's a common issue in a male-dominated society where women are treated no better than animals. And to think this is not fantasy but reality makes it all the more poignant. Many women in the world go through such horrors n the general public is usually indifferent. Hope your voice is heard n the world wakes up. A powerful write that deserves 10 for its courage n truth.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
What a pathetic poem yet as bright as oozing blood.10