im hungry, im hellish

is it my fault i take it

or yours that you gave it?

so selfish, so draining,

i take all, i hate it

im draining, im gaining,

the weight and the aching

i carry it quietly

then call it my making

ill leave you so empty,

then leave like it's healthy.

like losing you gently

could somehow unmake me.

you were so kind, you were so sweet

that i don't know if i loved you;

or i loved how you loved me.

i don't know if i loved you;

or the way that you stay,

or the warmth of your hands

when i pushed you away.

i love you i swear, i did

i loved you, i still might

but it's all fake it's all lies

just dressed up in goodbyes

i loved you, but i love me

and maybe that's selfish

but maybe that's all i can be.

and im sorry that i took it

im sorry i stayed,

im sorry your love

became something i weighed

im so hollow, so selfish.

still hungry, still hellish.

i loved you,

i lost you.

and god, i still miss it.

again and again, across epics, folktales, and myths whispered across generations, the same image appears — a woman standing at the threshold of grief, humiliation, vengeance, or transformation, her hair left untied. it spills down her back like a river that has burst its banks. it follows her like a storm cloud. it becomes a language before she has spoken a single word.

from draupadi's vow in the mahabharata to the long haired chudails who wander through village folklore, from goddesses dancing across battlefields to spirits lingering beneath banyan trees, indian imagination returns obsessively to the figure of the woman with unbound hair.

the repetition feels deliberate.

as though somewhere within the cultural memory of the subcontinent,

loose hair has come to mean something more than appearance.

something more than beauty.

something closer to a warning.

for centuries, long hair has occupied a peculiar place in south asian notions of femininity. it is praised in songs, celebrated in poetry, adorned with jasmine flowers, threaded with oil, woven into thick braids by mothers and grandmothers.

long hair is presented as beauty, but also as discipline. it is expected to be neat, controlled, and respectable. a girl's hair is rarely just her own, it becomes a reflection of her upbringing, her modesty, her "sanskar."

the ideal woman is often imagined with her hair carefully tied back, every strand in its place, every movement contained.

the expectation seems harmless until one notices what lies beneath it.

to tie hair is to arrange it.

to arrange it is to discipline it.

to discipline it is to make it acceptable.

perhaps this is why untied hair becomes so powerful in Indian storytelling. the moment a woman leaves her hair loose, she abandons the visual grammar of obedience.

the braid loosens.

the flowers fall away.

the performance ends.

and beneath the performance stands a woman who remembers.

nowhere is this image more striking than in the story of draupadi.

after being dragged into the kuru court and publicly humiliated before kings, elders, and warriors who choose silence over justice, draupadi makes a vow.

she refuses to bind her hair until it has been washed in the blood of those responsible for her dishonour.

the image is unforgettable.

a woman standing amidst the ruins of dignity, carrying her anger not in a weapon but in her appearance.

day after day, year after year, her untied hair becomes a living archive of injustice. every loose strand bears witness. every knot remembers. her hair ceases to be an ornament and becomes a wound history cannot close.

the mahabharata is often remembered as a story of kings and warriors, yet beneath the clash of weapons runs another current entirely — the rage of women.

amba's story is perhaps one of the most striking examples of female rage in Indian literature. denied agency repeatedly by the men who decide her fate, she dedicates her entire existence to vengeance. even death is not enough to extinguish her fury. she returns as shikhandi and becomes the very reason for bhishma's downfall. her rage survives through lifetimes.

gandhari's anger burns differently. it is quieter, older, and perhaps even more devastating. for years she embodies sacrifice, binding her own eyes in solidarity with her husband. yet after witnessing the destruction of her sons and the collapse of everything she loved, her grief erupts into a curse powerful enough to alter the destiny of krishna himself.

in these stories, female rage is not irrational. it is not hysterical. it is not a flaw to be corrected.

it is prophetic.

it reveals fractures long before kingdoms collapse into them.

the same pattern emerges beyond the epic and into folklore.

across India, female spirits such as chudails, daayans, and yakshinis are almost always imagined with long, flowing hair. they emerge from stories of betrayal, abandonment, violence, childbirth, loneliness, and injustice. they are women whose suffering was never acknowledged, whose stories were never completed.

and so they return.

not as queens.

not as wives.

not as daughters.

but as memories that refuse burial.

their hair follows them through moonlit roads and village legends, a dark banner announcing unfinished business. the horror of these figures does not lie in their appearance. it lies in what they represent.

a woman who was wronged.

a woman who remembers.

a woman who has stopped asking politely.

perhaps this explains the contradiction at the heart of Indian imagination.

the same society that celebrates long hair as a symbol of beauty often fears it when it escapes control.

braided hair is virtuous.

loose hair is dangerous.

one is admired.

the other is watched.

the transformation is astonishing. the very feature used to define ideal femininity becomes the symbol of rebellion the moment it ceases to behave.

this contradiction reaches its most powerful expression in the figure of the goddess.

when kali appears with her hair flying wild around her, she does not resemble the carefully composed image of acceptable womanhood. she is terrifying, magnificent, and impossible to contain. she stands beyond the boundaries of respectability. her hair moves like dark fire. her fury becomes cosmic.

yet even in her terror there is liberation.

she does not apologize for her power.

she does not soften herself for comfort.

she does not become smaller to remain lovable.

again and again, Indian literature and folklore return to these women — queens, goddesses, ghosts, mothers, warriors, and spirits. their stories differ, yet they are united by a single image.

loose hair.

unbound hair.

hair that refuses arrangement.

hair that refuses forgetting.

perhaps what haunts Indian imagination is not female anger itself, but the persistence of female memory. anger fades. kingdoms crumble. empires disappear into dust. yet memory remains, moving quietly through stories, resurfacing generation after generation.

it becomes a vow spoken in a royal court.

it becomes a curse cast upon a god.

it becomes a woman reborn for revenge.

it becomes a spirit wandering beneath a banyan tree.

and each time it returns, it returns with her hair untied.

not because she has abandoned her femininity.

but because she has abandoned the expectation that femininity must always be silent.

in a world that teaches women to braid their hair neatly, lower their voices, and carry their suffering with grace, the woman who lets her hair fall loose becomes something far more unsettling than a rebel.

she becomes a reminder.

that some wounds remain open.

that some injustices survive centuries.

and that memory, unlike beauty,

can never be disciplined.

i was mostly lonely growing up, both my parents were working, and their relationship was not that great either, so i stayed with my mother most of the time, while my father was just there, not so present

so i used to spend a lot of time with my nanny, she was there for me whenever i needed her, she was so sweet and kind, and she understood the things i was not even able to express myself

kids my age did not really accept me because i was different, i barely had any friends, but i had a best friend, and he was enough. more than enough, i would say

so me, him, and my nanny, who eventually became our nanny, used to play together all the time, she was all a lonely child could ever ask for

but she had cancer.

and when we were seven, she died.

yes, i still grieve her.

i miss her melodious voice, i miss how she used to feed me bread and jam after school, i miss sleeping on her lap while she recited stories from books to me, i miss the way she used to kiss my cheek whenever i sat close to her, and most of all, i miss telling her about how the kids were bullying me, and hearing her encourage me not to drown in the sadness i carried when i was only seven

after my nanny died, all i had left was my best friend

he meant the world to me,

the little boy with bright, enormous dreams, he had this spark in his eyes, the kind of spark only a few are born with, he was the smartest and kindest human i had ever known, he used to read books with no pictures in them, and then he would come to me just to tell me about them, he used to write letters to fictional characters, fold them into paper aeroplanes or little boats, and send them away, hoping those fictional characters would somehow find his words

he was pure.

he was magic.

we grew up together, becoming two completely different people while somehow remaining very much alike, he was into books and art, while i was into sports and dance, but we always found a common ground and met each other halfway,

i think that is how we became inseparable.

we used to talk about growing up, going to college together, and building our own houses next to each other someday, he used to tell me how his house was not safe for him, and i always failed to understand what he truly meant, he used to talk about leaving this world, about finding a new galaxy somewhere and building a new life there, and i would laugh at it every time

we talked about leaving a lot,

leaving our city, our country, and doing something extraordinary with our lives,

we wanted to go and live on the moon,  the kind of conversations only two eight-year-old children could have, and we were those children.

he wanted to become a doctor and cure people suffering from cancer because our nanny had died from it.

i would just sit there and listen to him talk about the way he thought and the things he carried inside his mind

i was a sad child.

he was a depressed one.

i was loud.

he was suppressed.

i was bright.

he was oppressed.

we were both victims in different ways, but he was the one who chose to rest.

he always used to talk about leaving this universe, and one day, when we were twelve, he did exactly what he said,  he left me behind, alone, with the people we used to call aliens, and he chose to leave this world where he was never addressed

i could not do that. i was not as brave as he was, or maybe i wasn't a coward,

but i know how much he suffered before he finally gave up

he always wanted to fly high like an eagle,

and in the end, he did.

he grew wings.

and he flew.

i am still here, though

i still mourn his death to this day, i have never made another best friend after him,

i have never opened up to anyone the way i opened up to him, and i do not think i ever will.

my mouth is dry like a season without rain,

my stomach refuses to digest me,

this home has never really learned my name.

i braid my veins, make them look more presentable,

i gulp down water like it might wash something clean,

i take up too much space,

i make a lot of mess,

i weld my skin into a corpse, then complain about the smell.

my hands bleed a lot now,

my legs too weak to stay,

i live in guilt, a house made of glass,

and grief is familiar now,

it visits often enough to know where everything is kept.

my soul wants to escape but my skin doesn’t stretch,

i’m ripping at the seams,

like a child who always screams.

lay my soul upon the table like a feast,

seasoned with grief, with love, with rage,

with every wound I was too gentle to name

they take a bite of me

and choke.

spit me out as though honesty were bitter on the tongue

so I gather my ruined pieces again,

dress them in sweeter flavors,

garnish my pain with laughter,

teach my sorrow how to taste beautiful

and once more, i offer myself,

slowly this time, carefully,

letting them consume me in quiet mouthfuls

until they swallow too much of what i hide beneath

and again, they choke.

only now, they die with my name in their throat

so tell me —

am i poisonous?

or are they simply unaccustomed

to devouring something real?

i claim i love myself, but the words taste untrue; every praise that they throw, feels like a wound breaking through.

he whispers of love, but it feels like a trick, his touch makes me burn, his words make me sick.

objectified, bruised, shoved-when all i ask is to be seen,

and to be loved.