The Delicate Soul’s Path of Asceticism

I bear no grievance against the sky, nor complaint against the earth. I am simply weary of the long ritual of gentleness taught to women—
That gentleness which places a smile on their lips, yet turmoil in their hearts.

Inside me dwells a woman who does not want to scream, yet refuses to remain silent.
She who considers every sigh of the night her craft, and every tear not a lament, but a sacred rite.

People say women are weak. I say only those afraid of pain are weak.
And I— I live draped in my pain.

My sorrows are no ordinary sorrows. They are woven with years of patience.
Words that could never be spoken, touches left unfulfilled, questions buried every night beneath my pillow—
All have become lamps shining on the shrine within me.
I search for myself in their light, and when nothing is found, I kiss my own shadow—
Like a dervish bowing at her own tomb.

Sometimes I feel I am not a woman, but an ancient prayer,
Stuck on the tongue of some elder, lost in the dust of time.
I am that unspoken voice, that touch desired but never touched.

And yes, I weep...
But those tears are not a sign of defeat.
They are the prostrations my soul has performed—silent, wordless, without plea.
I have nurtured my pain as a mother nurtures her child.
And when it grew strong, it made me a mystic—a faqira who in solitude does not flee from herself, but draws nearer.

I called upon God in my loneliness,
And heard only the sound of my own breath in response.
At first, I thought it was silence.
Then I realized—it was me.
And the “self” is the first station of spiritual realization.

When the night deepens and breaths falter, I close my eyes.
No complaints, no lamentations—
Just a "night-bearing sigh" that descends into my veins and turns into prayer.

People say I am weak, drowned in wine.
They do not know—I drink myself, sip by sip, slowly.
I seek pride in annihilation.
And in that annihilation, Shakira Nandini finds herself.