Would less thou be a woman, if thy heart
Seeks to look beyond, that blinkered age
From man’s, thy creed, what tells apart!
Is that fetter, self-decreed, thy womanhood, thy cage

Thou never molt thy skin, that inborn XX thing
Why thy nature be forever, a spent outrage
Thou hate me, thou love me, thou have thy fling
Then flaunt thy frailty, thy womanhood, thy cage

Thy prism is that kind, it warps, the face of truth
Thou a ‘woman’, never a ‘person’, to sense and gage
“Every realm so bigoted, every ritual so uncouth”
Thou march on a martyr, thy womanhood, thy cage

If pinkest be thy passion, why blackest thy mystique
The soul of unrequited yesterdays, a ghost on rampage
Undone, lingers on yet, lost spirit of thy clique
A destined eternal debt, thy womanhood, thy cage

© 2016 Vikas Chandra