Mirage.

barbed wires.

278 Chinar leaves have fallen,
but Kashmir recognizes a red,
so different that Fall replaces bullets,
and leaves become disguised in blood.
None of the trees whisper their
longing for Spring.
The sky never turns it's back on
the perpetual raging violet.
Violation comes differently
to different ones.
And, I have hence watched
my shadow lengthen,
under the scarlet starlit night sky,
only to remember that I was
too young then to recognize violation,
violence, trespassing fingers on my skin,
making me feel ashamed to have breasts.
Years have taught me,
the trespassers remain undaunted,
as they try to appropriate the length of my dress.
As if, my dress, or my body is the one at fault.
As if, I provoke to be exploited and touched without consent.
As if, it's not their prying fingers, and
lewd fantasies that want to feel power
by assaulting and making me feel helpless.
As if, it's not their desire to dominate and
submerge my protests, because my body is their conquest.
My body, our land, as if it's ours at all.
My fate, my loss, my anguish, as if I
possess the due audacity to claim what's mine.
Sometimes, however, I have been told,
In order to feel loss you need not possess it.
I disagree,
Loss is personal.
It can only be felt where tangibility lies.
And, this time, the tangibility lies beyond me.
The possibility of the impossible has come to a halt, a pause which only leads to a change in possibilities and none favour me.
I could call this deus ex machina, my fate.
But, it's not.
This loss is not mine.
And, what could be, is not either.
A bruised corpse,
with arms wide open,
Death too refuses to lie.
A passerby,
cries hexagons of tears,
And before they reach the ground,
They become snowflakes in the eyes.
Despair ages, and walks away,
Leaving nothing behind, but
barbed wires.