The lioness...

This man who lies here,
Was never mine,
He was always,
Of the wine.
He never looked back at me,
What I did to my children.
It was I, who parented them,
I was both their father and a mother.
I made my identity.

Today, when I see him,
All set for the heavenly abode,
I am forced to look back,
In time, in the gone crisis,
And I lay numb.
He hardly was a part,
Of my life and my cubs.

Now, when they break my bangles,
And pull out my ‘mangalsutra’
He makes me realize,
What he gave me.
He gave me security,
With his ‘sindoor’.
I was a lioness.
I had an identity,
Because his ‘mangalsutra’,
Saved me from the eyes,
Of all those hawks and wolves,
That hovered over me,
To snatch the lives of,
My cubs and me.

And at this moment,
I stare at the hollowness of my society.
A society which called me a lioness,
And praised me for my hardwork,
Appreciated me for changing my times,
For how courageously I changed my crisis into happiness.
And now when my husband lies here unalive,
They pull out my greenery,
And call me a ‘widow’,
And all of a sudden I realize,
The lioness in me ceases to exist…

-preyasi