Litany for the Bleeding Divine
Author’s Note: This piece is not just a poem. It is a ritual. A fire-lit lament. A soul invocation drawn from the deep wells of ancestral memory, cultural contradiction, and feminine fury.
🛑 Trigger Warning: This poem contains references to domestic violence, gender-based trauma, and cultural grief. Please tend to your nervous system and read at your own pace.
I’d be confused too
If we’re worshipping
Durga,
Lakshmi,
Parvati
In poojas,
In holy fire
Yet,
Show films
Of Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood—
Temples of cinema
Where we normalize
Violence
Men raising their hand
Against our women
India—
Among the highest in rape
In the ritual
Of wounding women.
Yet it’s also
Often known
That behind doors
Women are the matriarch
Of the family.
A new bride
Births
A new matriarch
But yet
Our women are silenced—
They say
That her only purpose
In life—
Is to be
A wife,
A mother.
That’s the only reason
She was born
To serve mankind
Or is it
To serve
Men?
Because last
I checked
Men were
Born from
Women.
You have
Sisters,
Daughters,
Mothers,
Aunties,
Grandmothers,
And yet
You have no problem
Entertaining thousands
Of showing
Just how easily
A man
Can raise
His hand
To his women
Yet women,
Oh—
Dare
We hit back?
We normalize
The cuts,
The bruises,
The taped mouth,
Of household
Women
Arrange them
Into marriage
Per rites of passage
Into homes
Where violence
Is the norm.
Because that’s how it’s done, beta.
Why question reality?
Isn’t what we’re going through
Enough?
But men
Oh they can have affairs,
They can have infidelities
But as women
We must be
Pure,
Domestic,
Obedient
Chaste.
Or is
Subservient?
Cause dare
We unleash
Our true feminine power?
Yes, womanhood holds
An undeniable initiation—
Durga’s sword
In trembling hands,
Lakshmi’s gold
Now stained,
Radha’s love
Turned to ash.
But in there,
She finds her true freedom
Her true empowerment
She finds
A primal fire
A crimson river
Coursing through her veins —
Sacred flame,
Sacred worth,
Sacred rage.
An electric lightning
That shocks
Shatters through
Illusions
She finds
A tongue forged in
Kaliamma’s power
From the bottom of
Her belly
Abyss of the volcano
That’s long been too dormant.
Beneath my fire
I found a sob—
Not just for us,
But for you too,
Dear men.
And I get it.
I do,
Dear men.
It’s not like
You were given everything
On a silver, golden platter
You were told
That you are only as worthy
As the dollar sign
You bring home
Or else you bring
Shame not only
To yourself
But to your new, burgeoning,
Family
But to your
bloodline.
I get it
Your life is always
And always will be
A competition of the workplace.
Your masculinity
Short-circuited
By lighter skin,
By caste,
By power,
You are silenced.
You are told:
Don’t speak.
Don’t feel.
Don’t act
On your gut.
You had to work
Three jobs, maybe four
Just to keep the lights on,
Just to hold the house—
Together.
Hustles through silence,
Through spit, through shame—
For the college fund,
For the marriage fund.
But when did anyone see you?
See the real you
Beneath your anger?
Because you,
My dear boy
Were never allowed to grieve
To wail
No, you had
To be a man
Dare you be anything
Close to soft, weak,
Feminine
But what if.
Just what if—
That’s where your power lies.
I know you feel it
I see you out there
And your hearts are opening more
There’s a new generation blooming
Where our women
Kick box
And our men
Weep
There’s a new generation
Where violence is halted.
Towards women’s bodies,
Towards men’s freedom.
So come
Let me awaken you
May you be
A man,
A woman,
A they,
Let me plead to your heartstrings
Please stop this violence
Let’s go back to
Worshipping
Shiva
Shakti
Ardhana ishvara.
The One
Who was always
Both.
In human forms.
When we bleed,
The divine bleeds.
Remember that
At your next pooja
They’re not mere
Stone carvings harvested
With sacred energies
But they’re human forms
Harvesting sacred energies
They’re a part of our psyche
They’re a part of
Our bones,
Our cells,
Our veins,
Our muscles.
We are divine.
But in order to resurrect the divine
We have to dance with the dark forces
Within ourselves
So that the divine
Can finally
Be born.
Not from the pooja’s flame
But from dung,
From the
Ashes of vibhuti—
We rise.
Shed your armor
Invoke,
The wilderness
Within—
Let us lament,
Let us wail,
Let us scream,
Let us rage—
Let us rise.
Let us remember as we
Stare into the eyes
Of the Bengali tigress—
Who lick our faces
Unflinching at grief,
Mirroring our souls,
And says,
You’re artfully,
Achingly,
Human.
Let us roar into the wild
To unleash
Our humanity
That’s long
Been forgotten
In the shadows.
Your shadows
Cloaked by maya
As shame,
Are signals,
Torches,
In the temple,
Leading you,
To your own,
Inner jewel.
Adorned for you,
Dear divinity.
Welcome home.
Your shadows
Will light the way.
Sakthi Ramesh, AMFT #155011
Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
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