I am the colour brown,
and not the latte or the cocoa brown that is devoured by men,
I am the colour of earth,
I am silt, that brings life to reapers.
I am dust, that rises for droplets to coalesce around and fall as rain.
I am clay, that takes shape on a potter's wheel to tend to dearth,
I am sand, that adorns a soldier's forehead before entering a battlefield.
I am the Sita who never waited for Ram to come,
And yet,
I am also Sati, and parts of me have been burned for far too long,
Charred by the soot,
Mucked by the ash,
I am black now.

I am hurt.
I am scarred,
Still,
I survive.
Because I know
I am my pair of ghungroo, striking the hard floor at all the correct beats and
I am my feet that balances me perfectly on hundreds of one-foot turns.
I am my diary, dissolving in the numbness of my being and
embracing the ink flowing out of my pen.
I am my pain,
That eventually leaves.
I am my breathe
That stays.

- RS