— Haris Adhikari
I guess you wouldn’t be living.
There was no earthquake in her screams, she was nothing
but wounds all over – red, blue, brown, purple –
bleeding on the junction – a matter of extreme curiosity for kids around
peeping from below your hips, or running after your footsteps.
Perhaps her busted head was a football!
Perhaps your boots, canes and stones were not enough, so
she was yelling at you to drag and thrash her more!
If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living.
Either she would surely escape flying on her broomstick
or just vanish with a simple click of her fingers right in the beginning
or furiously hurl you into a dark cave where
she would avenge by forcing you to eat human feces
the way you forced her, or, she would hammer your hands and legs
and teach you a lesson by pulling out your teeth
with more force and fury than you used to display your bravado.
If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living
and your children wouldn’t die of dysentery or of fever. Possession
is what you did to her, not what she did or did not.
She – just a single finger, and you – an entire village,
what a mad swarm of bees stinging a life to almost death!
Neither she spoke scary words nor called a thunder down.
What’s black magic? Why would she only leave the marks of her teeth
on your thighs or arms when she could have the whole of you?
(First appeared in MadSwirl)