I Am Not Your Hindustani Musalman (Poem)

Urine settles on the pores
Of my detained tongue
As Azaan sneaks in through the holes
Under the prison walls

I am the Muslim
Whose clock freezes
Under piles of terror charges,
Whose ears go numb
With echoes from third-degree chambers

My bones are fodder
To the bricks of Dadri,
My foetus is the crown
On the spears of Gujarat,
My palms are the raised pillows
To the bent heads of Hashimpura

I am the Muslim
Whose breath hangs
On a black wire
Curling like a snake
Around the loudspeakers
Of neighborhood temples

My feet never touched the lips of Ganga
for I was eating beef with the Asuras’,
My eyes never read the Gita
for they kept looking for the thumbs of Ekalavyas’

I am the Muslim
Whose fist raises
When untouchable fingers break
Between the Manusmriti’s pages

My lover goes missing
Among the thickets of corpses
Without names or stories
Under the womb of Jhelum

I am the Muslim
Whose window sills carry
The scent of gunpowder
Fom occupied nights

Three headed flags
Thrust their saffron fangs
Upon my lips
To mimic its anthems

I am the Muslim
Who shakes in fright
Clutching his beard
When a stranger bombs
Faraway planets

I am the tenant
Every owner evicts

I am the refugee
Every border rejects

I am not your Hindustani Musalman,
For it’s a door I am forced to knock,
The one that is never opened

I am not your Hindustani Musalman,
For I am killed
For not being one

I am not your Hindustani Musalman
I am not your Hindustani Musalman