CONFLICT

I am a dog.

A dog caught in a ‘conflict’.

But your ‘conflict’

Is nothing but the shriveled carcass of the dog,

Dressed in the dust of the streets

A sumptuous feast for waiting beasts

Salivating for the succour

Of dead bones and meat.

My bayoneted dreams of a homeland

Have become fodder for your ‘conflict studies’

My mother’s restive eyes,

have become a footnote in your tome on

secessionist history.

In Guwahati you sit and write,

Of bullet riddled bodies,

as hollow as your sorrow.

Of decapitated torsos,

as severed as your souls.

With ink, you try to fake

my dried blood on the rake

In the cloak of celluloid

You try to sell

my raped virginity to the world.