No, my nightmares don’t revolve around ghosts and spirits. I wish they would; I wish they were too unreal to Terrify me.

But instead, when I close my eyes, I see a little girl is pinched in her arse,

The full moon weeps a song of her cries, Her own family gives the wolves a pass.

I see the monstrous hands of an old lady Who always lurk on the pavements forbidden. They grab my feet, sudden and steady, For a penny or two. Herstory remains hidden.

I see fire in my eyes and flickering flames As a Shadow chases me from behind.

My dress is his armor, shrouding his shame.

His cold fingers turn my blaze blind.

I see my mother sabotaged by lies: The kitchen cabinet safes her cries.

I see Saraswati bleed ink in the battlefield, She carves her own skin against the night’s shield.

I see kajal smudged like the pyre’s ashes.

Veiled under the dupatta, the doppelganger smiles. Painted across her canvas are carmine slashes,

Her wrist beneath the bangles, by bruises, defiled.

Sometimes, I free fall into a lucid space. I see TVs flash a doll’s leg with a chick head And a cow barking with a bitch face.

A man called History chains the monsters under this bed,

And upon it I lie,

A creature tied,

To the altar to be sacrificed.

I see a manic girl screaming on the roadside, With all her luggage lying beside: “BOL NA! BOL NA! BOL NA!” Like the repetitive sound effects

In the horror movie’s warning: “Don’t let it in, don’t let it in, don’t let it in.” Reverberating and echoing.

And when I wake up, I realize My dreams are not just dreams, I realize

I stand on the liminal space,

Where dreams and reality intermesh.

I realize

It doesn’t really matter,

For they have always been one.