whisper and the roar

And how the body heals-Megha Sood

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And how the body teaches itself to heal

to get up 

shed off the scars

the sullen time has left behind

rub off all the cobwebs 

of the stale vapid moments

nesting in you for time forever 

taking shelter in your mind

feasting on your memories

like maggots

and sucking off the light 

that was once so divine

 

And the how the body teaches itself to recover

by crying profusely 

pouring out the tears

chaos of the lonely soul 

that deep lamentation 

that once gone sour

and how it springs that fountain of elixir

stemming from the depths of your heart

to cleanse you

once again

and to baptize your sins

marking you as a nubile

a soul apart

 

And how the body fight and shuts itself down

cocooned within itself 

sitting cross-legged in the dark 

hunched by the pain of the 

deep remorse

and sitting in complete silence 

mute and numb to the core

those screech and 

the screams are falling on the 

deaf and dead ears 

when the cacophony 

gets too loud to hear

and your mind plays soliloquy 

with its core

 

And how the body preaches itself 

that’s it OK to love and heal once again

let the old scars heal 

for the new ones to 

be born again.

The body never forgets to heal

even though we forget to remind it.

–Megha Sood

Rebirth – Megha Sood

“A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
― Chris Cleave, Little Bee

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You plucked my wings

feather by feather

pulled it out in pieces

from the blades of my shoulder

You can bloody me all you want

shred me into pieces

and rip them into halves

for everyone to see it.

Your hands sanguine with my

seraphic blood

your soul

deeply encumbered.

But you can’t douse the

eternal flame in me

the one which is burning

and giving me the intensity

the light of my being

my aura,

my personality

these wounds will heal

and scars will be formed

that is how the life sustains

that is how life is born.

Photo by Gaston Roulstone on Unsplash

Preyed

 

Whispers penetrate flesh walls,
secrets resound like a melody
within the temple of mind.

A church choir of boys
sing Latin,
a tongue they never understood,
yet made beautiful in spite.

An angelic host of innocence,
perched in perfect rows;
perverse men licking dry lips
conduct harmony, as
chorus echoes in rounds
confined by marble stone
laid by hypocritical hands.

In time holy walls stand,
coffers full and overflowing
while souls remain empty.

Yet pride crumbles the benevolent,
corrupt tongues stumble awkwardly
over the dulled ivory teeth of time.

Stained glass fragments let in truth,
rays of light stream through darkness
reflecting a shattered faith sanctuary
built upon broken bones of man.

 

©Sabrina Escorcio
September 2017

Photo Credit, Sam Webber illustration for “the Priest That Preyed” – New York Times

 

Elements-Megha Sood

First Published in the Writer’s cafe Magazine Issue 13 -“Elements”

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My soul without the love

an empty poem

Stripped of its beauty

with metaphors

but nothing to compare with.

 

My mind

with it’s tangled thoughts

ricochet between the doubts and the certainty

almost sure of the day

when nothing will begin and everything will end

a journey towards Oblivion.

 

My skin

devoid of the healing touch and showered with the wet empty kisses

you plant every day on my cheeks

it bears marks of time

sensitive to even the pain

when the time shrugs its shoulder

and the moment end

and my skin still waiting

for that healing touch

fervently to suppress that pain.

 

My love

a dream too real

conjured out of thin air

like the magic potion

will heal everything

and that magic elixir

will resurrect me from my darkness

of bone and Ash

my love enough to be real

to be felt with my fingertips

and too surreal

so I can feel the pain

when it leaves my body

gently as it glides

to live in the dimension

separate than mine.

 

My truth

a reality too hard to gulp down

your empty throat

when the reality cuts the dreams

with its serrated ends

and stripped off all its frivolity

it stands here naked

stripped

staring and gazing at you

with its bloodshot eyes

when you feel shameful

to hold it’s gaze.

 

So when the pain sits deep inside my

barren womb

like the dead lilies

knotted and tangled together

like the pain of the stillborn

where time eats time

you try to define

my mind,

my soul,

my skin,

my love,

my truth,

/my elements/

pulling and molding it together

to give it a shape and a form

and you realize

how wrong you were all along.

–Megha

Photo by Shifaaz shamoon on Unsplash

Update on ‘We Will Not Be Silenced’

Kindra M. Austin, Candice Louisa Daquin, Rachel Finch, and Christine E. Ray wish to express their gratitude to the 109 courageous writers and artists who submitted 214 pieces of original writing and artwork for consideration for the anthology ‘We Will Not Be Silenced.’ Your stunning creativity, raw authenticity, and enthusiasm for the project has been overwhelming. We are truly humbled at the response.

We are honored to serve as the custodians of your truth.

One Week Left to Submit Writing and/or Art for “We Will Not Be Silenced”

Bruised But Not Broken, Whisper and the Roar, Indie Blu(e), and Blood Into Ink are joining forces to publish an anthology about the lived experience of sexual harassment and assault. We believe that it is more important than ever before that more voices speak out and reclaim their strength by owning their survival stories. All contributors, female and male, can submit up to three pieces of creative work- these can include; Poetry, Prose, Essay, Short Fiction, Prose, or original Artwork, but should be limited in length (under 1,000 words) considering that this is an anthology. You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider nonacceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.

  • Submission of previously published pieces is acceptable if you still own the rights to your work.
  • Artwork can be submitted in black and white OR color but all artwork should be black and white compatible.
  • Using a pen name or publishing anonymously is acceptable.
  • All submissions should be sent to bloodintoink2017@gmail.com by midnight, Monday, October 15, 2018.

Writers and artists will retain the publishing rights to their individual submitted pieces. Indie Blu(e) will retain the rights to the collection We Will Not Be Silenced.

Pieces accepted for the Anthology may be used in whole or in part to promote the Anthology. All writers and artists will be appropriately credited in all promotional materials.

Should the royalties from sales of the Anthology exceed the costs of publishing and promoting the Collection, 70% of the royalties above these costs will be donated to organizations that support survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Foreign-Megha Sood

“I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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The elongated nights and their shapeless arrival

tiptoeing of these broken dreams

along the shattered corners of my heart

my goblin shaped nightmares

hiding around the corners

and monsters in the corridors wailing and calling my name

the nights stretch itself and cover every iota of my existence

the thin membrane of it

covering my soul

reminds me of the darkness in the womb

/but that felt safe wasn’t it/

sometimes the solitude

brings its own tranquility

and you get duped by the darkness

those broken dreams picks

at the black of my obsidian eye

where the dreams are falling down in the abyss

sitting at the edge of the darkness

where my own hands feel foreign to me.

–Megha

Photo by Dmytro Tolokonov on Unsplash

 

Disciple of love – Candice Daquin

When I met you, I had no tears

When you left me, I had too many

They didn’t stop

Though all the experts

On saline tear production

Proclaimed they would

Miss Daquin do not fear, they said

You will simply dry up, just wait

For a hot flash

Or a cold night

I told them

I have both

As for the cold night

That is now etched in ivy crept stone

Who thought before middle age

I’d be an old maid searching shelves for other parts of thrown-away women?

With no touch, no kiss, no arms wrapped around this

Hurt and lonely soul of water and menses

Snap out of it, my dance teacher said

You can

Have sex with cigarette smoking strangers

Learn self emulation

Or eat hot chili sauce with three layers of lipstick

And if you dance as gracefully as you talk

Well … Whose to stop the admirers?

She

Was a bird-like creature

Who would be tap dancing at ninety

But I

Was a disciple of love

And so the idea of swapping bodily fluids

With a thin-lipped voodoo stranger

Found on matchmaker site

Or a familiar face

Sitting by me in coffee shop sharing saucer as ashtray

Or lonely friend

Turning acquaintance to waxy want

Did not appeal

I had no more desire than if

I were asked to receive a house guest

Who didn’t wash

I was already

In my mouth of youth

An island of one woman

Yes I said

How did you know I am smarting? Convulsing?

Even I wasn’t aware

Except afterward thinking

When the school playground tasted of coal

And red fences were unchallenged

The way other children were already sulphur and minerals

How I seemed to be

Strange and boneless in comparison

Considering that great gendered emptiness

Swallowed in partial payment for not fitting jelly mould

I’ll take the rest of you, when you succumb

Did I mention I was a disciple of love?

And you, my ruination, supplied exact temperature

In everything you didn’t know you did

Filling the yelling bones of my chest

How could I have let you?

When I knew you were bred on cruel

Because cruelty I was used to

It seemed a still, varnished, normal

I trusted it more

Than kindness which would be snatched

Away like a lacquer fan

Broken into its false pieces

Only to take another form and try again

I think of those times

They are thicker than my fidgeting blood

All the answers were there

Blatant and dripping

And still I walked into you

Still I walked into you

Still I walked into you

How to be a woman? — Megha Sood

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There are rules to be followed

guidelines to be remembered

to be followed to the tee

before I can call my self a woman

a lady like appearance

and that ever-present grin on my face

smiling from ear to ear

just to please you and ease you into the life

as you please

I should bow down in obedience

should never raise my voice

walk with the stoop of  discipline

and  eat with your hand

with the freedom

you have handed me on the plate

Like I was the chosen one, you see

Oh! that skirt is a little shorter than we expected

see it clearly fails to keep those lurking demon inside their skin

Now, you have shown them

too much flesh

now they will come out

and rip you into shreds

will devour your soul from within

“I told you” they will say

keep your voice down

the patriarchy can’t handle you pitch

they are tone-deaf to your songs of freedom

every war cry of yours

is not too more than a screech

Give in to the fear

of those jackals

those protectors lurking in the dark

they are the guardians

of this society

and your voice is ripping them apart

So, the next time the world try to

teach me how to be a women

/an epitome of grace and elegance/

they should come and witness the scars

I bore on my body

and the glow I carry

which can put their

thousand suns to shame

a sight their shameful eyes

can’t bear to see.

I blog at Megha’s World

Photo by Eloise Ambursley on Unsplash

 

 

 

And how the body heals-Megha Sood

liliana-pereira-708261-unsplash.jpg

And how the body teaches itself to heal

to get up 

shed off the scars

the sullen time has left behind

rub off all the cobwebs 

of the stale vapid moments

nesting in you for time forever 

taking shelter in your mind

feasting on your memories

like maggots

and sucking off the light 

that was once so divine

 

And the how the body teaches itself to recover

by crying profusely 

pouring out the tears

chaos of the lonely soul 

that deep lamentation 

that once gone sour

and how it springs that fountain of elixir

stemming from the depths of your heart

to cleanse you

once again

and to baptize your sins

marking you as a nubile

a soul apart

 

And how the body fight and shuts itself down

cocooned within itself 

sitting cross-legged in the dark 

hunched by the pain of the 

deep remorse

and sitting in complete silence 

mute and numb to the core

those screech and 

the screams are falling on the 

deaf and dead ears 

when the cacophony 

gets too loud to hear

and your mind plays soliloquy 

with its core

 

And how the body preaches itself 

that’s it OK to love and heal once again

let the old scars heal 

for the new ones to 

be born again.

The body never forgets to heal

even though we 

forget to remind it.

–Megha