Angry Women

Suchita Senthil Kumar

In Tamizh, we have words for harsh women.
When in an argument with her in-laws, my mother
calls herself a [           ] before anyone else can.
The act of wrenching an enemy's weapon
and holding it over your chest— a slur 
is a slur only as long as you refuse it.

My mother named me Suchita,
meaning she who bears a kind heart,
hoping I'd grow with olive branches for hands,
buds of jasmines for teeth and a pearl sheen.
Amma, I confuse kindness with submission
the same way you confuse power with anger.

When I'm angry, I simply cry. 
Retch my throat until it spits out sounds 
awfully similar to the syllables of my name.
Amma, I have your nose. Your eyes, your hair.
Why is it a surprise I have your teeth too?

Before a baby learns to speak,
say am-ma, it needs its teeth grown.
With every unpleasant retort of mine,
you try placing marbles into my mouth.
Once, as a child, my canines tore right into
its eye. For a moment, weren't you proud?

I wanted so much to not become the [          ],
that I became something worse. These people
don't yet have a slur for a woman like me.
Amma, kindness has taken me to all the wrong places.
A hand around my throat, metal clanging in my ears,
my body curled into a comma that refuses to move.

Isn't all rigidity just tenderness gone sour?
I know this because your calloused hands
once felt soft over my forehead. I used to sing before
my voice turned into this awful sound. Tell me, 
does the snake seethe its split tongue 
before biting its own tail?

Suchita Senthil Kumar is a poet from Bengaluru, India. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Live Wire India, Corvid Queen, Honey Literary and Aster Lit among others. She makes life decisions asking herself one question: Will Sirius Black be proud?

Instagram: suchita.senthilkumar
Twitter: @suchita_senthil