Sati

The devotees chanted and cried mystical hymns as

they offered the Great Heavens, a mortal

A soul too young to mother

A soul too perplexed to fathom. 

Her gaze dampened with tears of duty

The hollow bags under her eyes sucked her sorrow into an etch of black

My revolt denied to cross the walls of my throat. 

My nerves shivered and my world sank beneath my feet

To watch a ritual was enticing but

To clench through horror was different. 

"Oh! Good Heavens" I cried

Let her have the luxury in paradise

she was stripped off here in hell. 

She tried to utter a cry but the crude ember

started to feed on her

He put her hands on her and slowly her holiness was rinsed off by his evil. 

Her fair white pearl like skin boiled under her saree

Her hair that ran like waterfall curled into fiery strips of fume

We could smell the putrid but they smelt fulfilment and the whirl of a complete cycle

Her dead husband was already blackened and reduced into specks of coal

Her flesh melted under her own eyes- 

The men who desired her youth once were struck by the contours of a ghoul. 

Half the grown ups turned away

Now with remorse but with a smug and I-

Too baffled to move, watched the last skin on her drip into nothingness

A month before I had seen her dangling with mischief under the branch of the village tree

A day ago I had seen her willingly putting a smile to become a Sati

A few minutes ago I heared the shriek of burden

Now, I see a mould of coal before me

That was the last I had seen my sister.