I won’t shy away from a kiss,

In my head I have already devoured you.

I don’t want you to write paeans

On how my hair dreamily cascades down my waist

Or how the wind plays with my earrings

Or how my beauty stopped you in your tracks

And rendered you unable to function.

I don’t want you to ‘protect’ me

From the idiots on the road (were you one of them?)

Or the lechers at the chai wallah.

You might want to start taking notes,

I am about to expose an unacknowledged reality:

I happen to have a notion of my own sexuality.

I too, have hormones mingled in my blood

Which make desire pop in the middle of the road for a biker;

In the middle of a class for an intellectual;

In the middle of a book for someone fictional;

In the middle of… anywhere really. I don’t need an occasion for it.

You can’t change the very body you so love to tame.

You can’t deny my Desire

And yet you do. Always have.

Since you decided my body is made to make…

For whom – you are afraid to ask.

Because the answer – is me.

The darkest shade of my lipstick

Or the lowest cut of my neckline,

My unruly unthreaded eyebrow

My bikini-waxed you-know-what

Are ways I look at myself

Accept myself

Construct myself

In spite of the sexualized conundrum you would have me be.

You see,

There is a trace of possibility

That my body exists for me.

When I ask for it

You laugh it off,

Think I am cute

Slutty

Joking

Bold.

When I don’t however, ask for it

You blame my dress

Kajal

Cigarette

Time of the night I dared step out.

I know it’s a lot to take in

But I have spent my life

Shaming myself

For consuming trashy erotica,

Watching a whole episode for those five uncensored minutes,

Reaching out for my own navel sometime

Or caressing my neck,

For wanting more

And wanting it in the way I desire.

Sex

Is not a manly pursuit

And I will no more have you make a coy, simpering

Sexless, sexualized

Sculpture out of me.