“Control” by Shirani Rajapakse
He tells me my hair
isn’t right, straighten it,
that’s the fashion.
When I do, he’s not satisfied.
Rain never falls in straight lines, there are
always breaks, pauses between raindrops
like hyphens tumbling from the sky.
He tells me my hair’s
too short, grow it long and thick, tie it back
in a braid to fall along the
contours of my spine.
Women should not look like men.
They should wear their hair at
a certain length.
He takes pains to point out
all that’s wrong with my clothes,
the hemlines unfashionably long, my arms
all covered up.
Why am I so conservative?
He laughs, as if that’s something wrong.
Wear shorts, tank tops,
he wants to see my legs and arms,
don’t I feel warm?
He tells me my blouse is too revealing,
everything is exposed,
aren’t I ashamed to be seen like that?
Cover up,
that’s not the way women in
our society dress.
Don’t wear makeup,
don’t use those strange colors.
My lips look bloodstained, and what’s that
stuff on my eyes?
He tells me I’m wasting my time
sitting around doing nothing all day.
Get a job
go to an office
tire myself out so I won’t have time
to do anything else, like
write or think for myself.
He tells me I’m
wasting my talents writing poems.
Go start a website, a news portal
like that person he knows.
Write about politics and world affairs.
But I do, I say, and show him a poem.
That’s not politics.
He throws it away.
You are so talented, you have
such a good grasp of things.
That’s why I write,
I whisper to the winds.
But poetry is
not for fools, stories can’t convince clowns
hanging around for handouts — praise
from politicians and empty heads.
He tells me I should
change my name, try something else,
something modern, doesn’t realize that
everything that made me
who I am, this person
standing in front of you took
a long time evolving and he wants to
remake me,
wants me to give up
being me
to become nothing.
Not even a whisper thrown to clouds,
a dream hidden inside an old trunk
that can be taken out
and believed in when no one’s around.
He wants to transform me,
craft me into a lost soul straining
under a dark veil.
A form that’s dead inside.
I’d rather he went
someplace else and let me be
who I am with my
unruly, curly, unmanageable hair,
my arms bare,
cocooned in my beliefs ancient as they are,
writing my lines to the world
that he doesn’t understand
and my name—my name, you call out,
my name—inherited,
ancestral right,
my very own.
From “Chant of a Million Women” (self-published 2017)
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Shirani Rajapakse Artist Statement: Shirani Rajapakse is a Sri Lankan poet and short story writer. She is the author of three collections of short stories and three books of poetry. This poem was submitted in response to The Q: I’d like to share how I think that others around me perceive me.
