Margins are Godless, and Grief is Not For Ration / Raneesha Najida Rafeek

Margins are Godless, and Grief is Not For Ration

1.

Strangle that faith, terrible, terrible faith.

terrored, triggered faith.

Denounce your violent religion,

denounce your name,

denounce your birth, they said.

Greedy Gods make maps

of countries drawn from

innocent children holding stones

to fight guns and bulldozers.

How dare I hold both dissent

and faith in the same body?

As if any god could live in my margins.

Have you seen the insides of violently born

silence? of complicity in murder?

If you don’t feel a shiver ricocheting

inside your gut yet, let me tell you.

You have watched bodies disappear

under boots then blamed the wounded

for the blood and noise.

Note that down because

big brains tend to verify

only with binaries or a line of action.

Look at the bones on both sides,

can you name the machineries

wearing the boots?

A nation sharpens its swords and laws

on religion and caste and

then accuses of carrying stones

in our back pockets.

Greedy nations do not care about borders

or religion or caste.

just like lustful power hungry men

do not care breaching underwears

of mothers, babies and dead bodies.

In return, they can only offer you ghosts

of fathers, mothers, children, unborn babies

because grief is not for ration..

2.

On warm beverages and grief:

Almost all of the time, drinking beverages that bring comfort is not essentially a proactive choice. i

used to drink a lot of sulaimanis, ammi would say. My father used to drink more than a few cups,

boiling violently than his fragile temperament.

By the time my skin was felt for the first time, half my blood turned hot brewed cups of coffee. The

smell of freshly made cups grazes my cold face, corroding walls I don't remember putting up. It

tastes like all the winters I cradled on my frail chest.

Then one fine morning, on a foreign land, I developed a taste for adrak chai. i drank them religiously.

the faint stench of beedi on my shirt that accompanied most cups exited stage left as I crossed

borders. Every time I rested above your collarbones, you thawed the winters I held hidden from

eyesight. I made you sulaimanis and returned the favour.

Now I commemorate everything lost, childhood and a different future, with warm milk. every school

morning began with Ammi trying to force a full glass into my mouth. my thirst cumulated at the pit of

my stomach. yearning is a cancerous cell that multiplies in false hope, that takes a few steps back

and returns with a vengeance. I now drink warm beverages and pay respect to the deceased.

3.

I calculated my worth. I weighed myself last year.

I was more or less 36 kg. I wasn't much to be a burden.

on any shoulders. I asked for less, lesser

than the weight of flesh on my body.

By the end of the year, I have put on weight.

Ironic, taking into account I lost half the feeling in my body.

Half-hearted lovers served for last supper.

Half of everything, half of my name.

I look a little healthier than usual these days.

I wouldn't know if I'd recognize myself

if I were without all this mourning.

If you ever find me on the floor, do me a favour.

Take me to the place where my love bears a child.

A daughter loved in abundance.

If you hear my name among the obituary,

plant a mulla beside me.

So that they grow and lean over the mizan.

Jasmines would fall onto my lap as my lover would.

If at all, I am fortunate of a heart,

let my beloved water rivers and rivers upon me.

I have fallen slave to the miseries,

like all daughters without a childhood.

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About the Poet:

Raneesha Najida Rafeek is a queer socio-political poet and a writer from Kerala, author of ‘In The Name of Lilith’ (2023), a poetry collection that examines identity, faith and resistance.