Nir-Bhaya

I watched you on TV.
you were talking to a reporter.
"did you get justice?",
she asked.
and I wondered
if she was asking
about you
or your daughter,
for I believe
that somewhere
we've mixed up
the two.

I saw that faint glint
in your deep-set eyes
as you spoke,
your lips pursed
tighter than usual,
pupils lifeless, furtive,
and a voice firmer than stone;
it was a call
for the weight of my flesh,
nothing less,
and I suddenly saw
myself in you,
possessed,
by the smell of blood
and the closeness
of the jugular,
to quench a hunger
that's not mine,
but ours.

and so I ask you
without looking at your face,
without listening to your heart,
without touching your skin,
what would you do
if I were your son,
if I had raped and silenced
your daughter, my sister?
whose life would you ask justice for?
yours, hers or mine?

today,
I feel 'Nirbhaya',
I don't run away
and hide from Her,
I look into her eyes
like a man,
and she looks at me too,
and I ask you
to look into her eyes too,
and then meet me
some day,
somewhere
on that water's edge,
where fear walks free,
hand in hand
with love.