A boy often falling over other boys
Having a big company of girls
Trying to be a classical dancer
Hands used to move like waves of a sea
Giving everything the perfect texture
Had Rabindranath, Had Rituparno
Girls spending their time with coffee mugs
Discussing about the hunky boys
Busy in revealing the underwear
Alongwith the serpentine biceps
Talks having the word “sexy” for the hunks
While “gay” for that male dancer
Their talks often had the masala of “slut”
To figuratively analyse the revealing woman
They themselves had painted lips
With desires to kiss the hunk, for anything
Yet when they used to see the male dancer
Often pointed their painted fingers with sharp nooks
To say, “I think he is a gay, eww” and then their mark
Mark like a comma in a line, the giggling
Hot for the hunk, slut for the revealing girl, gay for the dancer
That was the phenomenon of the whole college
Where they used to read Samuel Beckett
But never tried to search the Godot
Because they had accepted Godot isn’t there
Just like they have categoriesed individuals
One who falls over boys, curious over a female dress
Has an interest towards classical dance
Vocal cords having the texture of a flute
Is a “Gay”, keeping all his emotions aside!
While the constant failing hunk
Showing all his bravery when comes to flirt
Is “a hot hunk” with whistles around
World is being eaten by this timid brain
Where everything fails to move
Slut, gay, hunk are no more words
Dissolving like a poison it is killing emotions
Where the stance of a boy has to be a signature
Of what his shy and pure emotion echoes
Where the crotch decides what the girl is
A slut or a normal girl, which is a venom
What lies beneath the mantle of the dancers heart
What is living in the mind of that ‘slut shamed girl’
Never opens, because we are the ruptued bolt
With a symbol of rigidity marking our forehead.
About the work: It is a poem on the suffering of a prostitute in her personal life.
Kabir Deb was born in Haflong and completed his schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Karimganj. After that completed his Graduation and Masters from Assam University, Assam. His work has been published in ‘To be my Valentine’ edition of Hall of Poets, Reviews Magazine, Bhor Foundation, Different Truths Magazine.
Copyright – Kabir Deb
