and then scolded him for it,
today I can imagine that the anger
that men take up so much space without noticing
whose feet they are stepping on
got to you.
you and I and her and her and her and her and
eat our words on an almost daily basis and
usually we balm ourselves with at least a small amount
of amnesia so the pain doesn’t cut holes into us,
but today you had had enough and you
so assertively told him he was in the WRONG PLACE
and as he scuttled away embarrassed, like a chaser
you sent after him
‘dikh nahi raha tumko?’
and I ask myself every day when I see men who see me
seeing the world, then unsee me, unsee the world that
sees me so violently, and every day I want to ask them
‘dikh nahi raha tumko?’
Vidushi Rijuta is currently doing a masters in counselling and psychotherapy. She loves writing about love (so naturally, about things like queerness, joy, friendship and grief). Her poems have been published in Fruit, a queer literary journal, and Ink Sweat & Tears.