I lied to you.

About my strength,
my capacity to avoid
horrid hurls against
women.
To me, they've always
mattered, as I grew up
thinking that girls were
revered, thinking souls
were god's abode. The
practice of the converse
jolted me to a thought:

Temples run off blood,
who says there's life
in that?

- Namrata Chowdhury