Persona- A Collection Of Poetries

She i̶s̶ʷᵃˢ Anu

Walking down the road at night,
She is Anu, the only one in sight.
Pace fastening but courage shaking.
A headline in the process of making.
Now, at the bus stop she stood
Wanting to go home if she could
She saw a transit vehicle pass by.
Frozen she stood, god knows why?
As logic mocked at her insanity,
Conscience lost faith in humanity.
Taking a bus, she should have reached
But in her ears Nirbhaya screeched.
A screech of demolishing her by raping
Screech of body cuts that were gaping
Screech of her mother's pain
Screech of her father's refrain.
"#Justice" is just a fleeting thought.
It is the mother who actually fought.
Just then a baby girl cried in her crib
As her uncle ruthlessly crushed her rib.
Not much later, a grandma last breathed
As her bare corpse laid blood wreathed.
Women in a country full of male rage
Men too blatant to think of her age.
Anu broke into a cold sweat.
Vision blurry and cheeks wet.
She was in a place where
Temples were built
But girls slaughtered there
Without any guilt.
Choked and suffocated she felt.
Traumatized by her fate, she knelt
Hopes were dwindling, survival unforeseen.
Knowing predators were on a hunt so keen.
Nevertheless she walked ahead
Abondoned pathways she tread.
With another day, headlines brought a new case
Anu's father wailed, it was his daughter's face.

~Simran Bawa