Entry #142

Finally Godess
by Ranee Kaur Banerjee


Brought fresh to your doorstep, I curdled at your cruelty.

Caged between the stove and the bed, I began to knot secrets in my poison-red, vermillion-streaked hair. I embroidered myself plots of intricate web-like mehendi. I boiled noxious, fuming thoughts.

I wanted to become Scheherazade and tell you 1001 tales to put you to sleep. Instead, I found Styx in a bottle.
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That monsoon night, I stood outside under the Banyan’s gnarled roots looking at the temple on the horizon where yet another sun had been killed, pierced by the spire.

I stood until the moon, impaled on a twisted branch bled tortured light.

I stood until you came and took the bottle away.

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“Don’t!” I cried. But you did.

I fell. I saw the shape of my lips in a blood-kiss on the cold marble floor. You grabbed my hair and made me kneel between your knees.

Drunk on the sun’s blood and the moon’s tears, I became Kali. My tongue hung red, thirsty, ready, dripping pinot noir.

As you pushed my face down, I bit hard and sucked and tasted your blood mingling with mine.

Then you were the one screaming “Don’t!”