By Meera S.
I. The Offering
Once, I made an altar of my hands,
cupped them like a beggar's bowl,
filled them with everything I had
to give—blood, breath, bone—
and still, you never looked down.
Never blinked.
II. The Evidence
Stories on 4x4 columns.
Mothers claw through wreckage for their children,
while girls birth daughters in basements.
At midnight, the highway devours
the golden-speckled deer,
and somewhere, a child learns too early
what it means to be unmade.
III. The Supplication
My knees continue to grow raw on your marble floors,
my forehead pressed against your holy books
until the ink bleeds into my pores—
Am I too small to warrant
your divine attention?
IV. The Realization
The country awakened to a fresh horror today.
Cross-legged before the television,
my sister asks, "What is rape?"
How does one tell a ten-year-old
that we're born with other's sins
nestled between our thighs,
that even God is just another father
who chose not to stay?
Nothing
but
a
man.
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