If you wrap around me
the compulsions of the world,
I will begin with rebellion.

Not because I can or wish
but because I must resist the yoke
of being someone I am not.

In the heart’s burnt playground,
flowers bloom again. I set up swings,
await children, birds, butterflies.

The sky promises to wear blue 
the day through, the sun is kind.
Every end dissolves in a beckoning.

…

Basudhara Roy teaches English at Karim City College affiliated to Kolhan University, Chaibasa. Her latest poetry is featured in Live Wire, The Woman Inc., Madras Courier, Lucy Writers’ Platform, Berfrois, Yearbook of Indian English Poetry 2020-2021, The EKL Review and The Aleph Review, among others. Her latest (second) collection of poems is Stitching a Home (New Delhi: Red River, 2021). She loves, rebels, writes and reviews from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India.