By: Raj Ratan Mala

“It’s just a phase”
Sure,
Like ignorance could get reality erased
The way coming out
Added motives to count me out
Judging if its my “taste”.
Sin?
Absolutely,
When they crawled under my skin
Someone whispered
Loving is a blessing
Loving genderfree,
A curse within;
A prince kissing a princess
Fancy amour from a bygone age,
A queen kissing a queen-
Oh, the historic villains of the stage!
But here I go
The same again,
My heart
Changes its pace
Everytime
I see her face
She’s the only spell
I’ll even want
To chase
The philtre trickling
From her lips
Drove me in to my absolute craze.
Oh and its not out of anger
Not because-
“boys didn’t work for me”
Not because
“it’s all over the internet”
Perhaps,
They ask me
About the “good old days”
When there was no hope,
Hope of swinging both ways
Those hopeless romantic
being filled up with what they’ll say
When I used to write
Heterosexual love essays
When my life used to be
A sombre sonnet
Where I loved according to
Rules in every phrase
Straight pornography could
“cure”
Since what I like would
Be a disgrace
Reality couldn’t be erased
I’m the happiest,
These scars were never scars,
They’re a beauty mark I’d
Willingly embrace
And if your ideas get the best of me
I want it to be a lifetime phase

###

Raj Ratan Mala is a published author of a teenage fiction novel ‘The Under18’s Diary’ and the ProArtMo anthology. Her works have been featured in literary journals including The Literary Yard, Auroras & Blossoms and Knit a Tale. Her poems have also been publicized by some really famous Instagram pages dedicated to literature.