They Faded Away

Dr. Radha Debroy
New Delhi, India

For days, her ravaged body hung from the stairs,
Her spirit in a land far away;
Her dead eyes watched the comings and goings
A mute witness, of lives fading.

She was mute, she could not say
The nightly daily gnawing away
Of her breasts, her body, her soul
All she did was await death,
to leave the hell that was ‘home’
In its own strange way.

Hunger, fed with assaults and beatings,
Thirst, from gashes bleeding.
She had no voice, She had no mind -
A silent shell for carnal feeding.

A ‘Home’ of her own or whatever it was,
Some watery rice, with price to pay;
To every electrician, peon, president
Paid, by sex with the inmates in stay.

Went on for ages
This mindless torture,
Pregnancy beaten out of their wombs,
By women no less, with hearts beating,
One might say.

On and on the frenzied feeding,
Of silent, mute, disabled prey.
One bird down and two bird down and
One by one, they faded away.

(This poem is based on an NGO, Anjali)

Photo by Dr. Radha Debroy