Godavari

She’s a world of contrasts.
 
She giggles like a schoolgirl –
her mirth
jingles across expansive corporate halls
cutting through smirks, sighs, and half-smiles.
 
She waits
coyishly
in silent corners
for a glimpse of her beloved.
 
She mothers her little sister
through struggles, heartbreaks,
tantrums, and tiny demands,
and is stern at harmless trespasses.

She wails
her heart out
into the muffling arms
of a pillow.
 
She’s the spirit of buzzing lights,
She’s the eye of the tiger,
She’s the deep of the forest.
 
She’s broken multiple times–
on the inside and out:
by a mother, by a father,
by a friend, by a partner.
 
She's a shard of glass,
She's the flame,
She's the lantern in the storm.

Like the Japanese art 
of fixing broken pots,
she works on her cracks
sometimes obsessively,
sometimes as a habit– 
each time
emerging
as a bearer of darkness,
as a warrior of light.