You'd Do Me No Harm by Ujjwala Maharjan and Yukta Bajracharya
Last night you came to me, drunk,
and said, where've I hit you?
With your words? I said,
In places that know no healing.
With your hands and feet and whip and stick,
in places so sore they've stopped bleeding.
So used to your fists,
I flinched when you held my hand
but I let you.
So used to your foul mouth,
I broke down when you kissed me
but I let you.
I took what you gave me and called it
love.
I caged myself and called that
protection.
I survived with my silence and called that
acceptance.
Because, that is what They taught me.
They said to me,
embrace the fist because that fist opens up to bring you bun on the table,
choke on the grip, for a while, but recover without a cough because,
that's the grip that will loosen up to shield you.
Give in, give in, give in
because that is what you body does.
Woman, spread your legs
not your wings
scream and plead
don't speak and stand
caress the hand that slapped you
beat you
thrashed you
break down in the arms that strangled you
because that man, that hand, that arm
Will protect you from harm.
They said,
You'd do me no harm.
You said, you'd do me no harm.
You said, you'd do me no harm
so nevermind my broken arm, you'd do me no harm.
You said, you'd do me no harm
so I won't ring the alarm, you'd do me no harm.
You said you'd do me no harm
But that's all that you've done
Is it that easy to forget
What you said just last night
When you scanned through my body
For the marks you'd made on it
In that darkness, didn't I hear you say you were sorry
That you loved me and you'd bring all this to an end
But then
Again
It rains
Your hard-knuckled fists pounding down on my brains
Pouring every bit of mad rage that runs in your veins
Monster, you're anger is never appeased
You could cut me to pieces and still not be pleased
And no matter where I run, you'll still hunt me down
Cause you love me, you need me, you'd do me no harm
By the way, Hey "They"
You see all this, right?
So why don't you say a thing and keep this eerie quiet?
Cause while of all the times you choose Now
To hold your ever-flapping tongue
This man, this hand, this arm -will only learn to do me more harm
And you, what was my fault
Remind me again
Why I deserve all this beating
This torture and pain
What? I put too much or too little sweet in your tea
Was I out for ten seconds more than the magnanimous ten minutes you'd lend me?
Oh was I out being the whore you'd made up in your head
Or was it simply a mistake to wake up from that bed
To see yet another day
You knew one of these days
I'd see the marvel that's me
Who's not as weak or as feeble
As she's made to believe
And while you've always measured your strength with your hard-hitting punches
I long far surpassed yours with my - endurance
But no more
I'm done being the victim
I'm done with this chase
I'll no longer run
But stand up to your face
And may be I've just caught a bit of your insanity
Cause I now know for sure,
You will do me no harm.
I said, you will do me no harm.
Lay down your (fucking) arms; you will do me no harm
I said, you will do me no harm
Go ring your alarms Hun; you will do me no harm.
I said, you will do me no harm
Cause that's all that you've done
And you've done just enough.
The privilege of stories
In your mind's library where you've randomly stacked stories,
there are also two never ending rows of shelves with stories
that are your own.
My eldest aunty says
before shoes became fashionistas' collections,
they meant privilege.
She didn't have them,
went to school without 'em
and got teased about it sometimes.
In her school, instead of tables and benches,
they had long sukuls laid out on the floor in multiple rows
they used to kneel over, come on all fours,
to copy A-B- C's into their notebooks.
The naughty boys behind her,
would sometimes giggle and poke at her bare behind
from under her the frocks she'd overgrown with sharp pencils,
some of which she says, she broke in revenge.
Underwears meant privilege.
And she didn't have them,
Not all the time.
The story of my mother has mostly been about dearth.
She grew up with a lot of absences.
First
her father
and then everything else that followed after.
She tells me she always had to work, so hard,
finishing up her duties in the kitchen then
shifting to the jyasa as she sat, paleti kasera, for hours with what seemed like no end
bent over a stool with a spread of silver
sharp tools
skills groomed over time on the edge of compulsion
making things - not ever for her own self to adorn
but making things happen,
making lunch and dinner
from whatever was in the kitchen
even when there wasn't anything much.
The only thing my maa, my grandmother, learned how to read as a child,
was poverty and hunger.
She says, on days there was no food in the house,
her mother, my great grandmother played a game with them.
She asked the children - my maa and her five hungry siblings,
to stay put
and not come up to the kitchen,
'cause anyone who did was out of the game and would not be served any dinner.
So they waited downstairs , gyaani children that they were, listening to their mother serving dinner,
clanging empty ladles on empty plates,
sometimes for as long as an hour.
She says, they would fall asleep like that, to that sound of plates and ladles,
a sweet lullaby, full of promises - of full plates and full stomachs.
My mother tells me,
back in the days,
eating an egg was a festive affair -once a year during mha puja
that too
if her grandmother was feeling generous.
Buying new clothes was a tough bargain,
first with a strict mother who was stingy -not by choice
and then with the shopkeeper who quoted a high price
my mother couldn't afford.
Even today,
my mother eats every last fibre of meat on the bones,
chews and apple to its slimmest core
dearth
has been a skilled teacher.
My baa once told me,
that when he was only 8 and already working for someone else
he was out resting on a grassy field one day, tired from his day's work,
when he found a book and curiously began flipping through its pages
but his sahu came over and rebuked him so hard
"You here to study or work? "
He says he remembers being so embarrassed,
he didn't dare to touch a book for years.
Years later,
I stand here with privileges, my family (my mother) never had.
Privilege, like my baa used to say,
is being able to recognize letters,
and piece them together to read, learn and explore about
anything your heart desired.
Privilege, is misplacing sharpeners and coming home with complaints about how my grandfather's pencil
stubs,
sharpened to the last nibble of lead,
always wrote so bluntly.
Privilege is learning sharing is caring.
Dearth is knowing it's the only way.
Privilege is this foreign tongue.
Dearth is a mother language we never had to learn.
Privilege is an inheritance from our families
passed down to us as stories.
Dearth is having lived like these stories never happened.
Privilege is getting to let people know that it did
that our stories matter
that we exist.
