Possession (read comments)

I have you  
where you do not want to be.  
What can I hope to keep  
with my body  
that would not stay for my mind.  
 
Chronicles of sepia and grainy  
black and white.  
Stowed away in my closet  
Under shameful panties  
too big bras.  
Lies a time that did not know puberty  
The texture of breasts no more  
than soft white fluid  
air in a balloon  
deflate.  
 
I could show you this.  
 
Crossroads jammed  
with yellow buses.  
Street hawkers selling me lunch.  
A small structure rises suddenly  
you would miss it.  
If it weren't for that man  
whose bust holds claim over four feet of space.  
I fell here. Legs splayed. Skirt in the air.  
Surrounded by stunned parents  
not knowing whether to laugh or hold.  
Only eleven, and so much information on my head.  
 
Home. That sad faced room.  
There you do not need meaning for neglect  
The simple image would do.  
This is the word coloring my walls.  
Storehouses in a back alley motel,  
Hold fewer secrets and strangers.  
This I drag through lands.  
Here I lived. And here. And here.  
 
Somewhere I learnt desire and guilt.  
Prayer and forgiveness. Soothing love of yours.  
I have never known happiness since  
not tainted with secrecy.  
Somewhere a pasture.  
Blindfolded I traveled in misted land  
And returned to never be the same again.  
Somewhere I was forced  
Breasts extracted from my sallow chest  
And a dead man no different  
from maggots feasting on rats.  
Separation no different from freedom.  
To remember it carries always a price.  
I have never known happiness since.  
 
Here.  
Why salvage that which only anticipates  
its doom.  
                                          
   - Pranoo Deshraju