An acknowledgement to my dear friend, because of whom I had learnt that being tagged as a
helicopter would be better than being unlabelled
There is a market that sells labels of fruits, a special kind of commodity
Things that straight men and women do not want to wear but still do,
The market opens for one week, staying closed for the rest of the year.
One day I wandered in, trembling, thinking “Is this the world that I had been excluded from?”
So many boxes of terms, filled to the brim,
Cards overflowing,
One label pushing out another.
The sellers, all people who were wearing rainbow-coloured T-shirts- a stick in hand to point
My friend had invited me, seduced me with sweet nothings
Said “This is the Land of Seven Bears and Tears”
I looked at the billboard of London Dollie, and they all beckoned me
“You will finally find who you belong to!!”
“Belong to not your self of course, neither a flag, but a label.”
My friend from school asked me the other day,
“What label do I belong to?”
The guy beside me scrunching up his man-brows asked, “He is a singer?”
I looked in confusion to toss and turn, over this new voluminous dilemma
I liked this girl, they had kissed me
Asked me “Labels? I had questioned “he or she?”
They slapped me twice for each pronoun that I had missed
Said ‘Educate yourself on this delightful mistake’.
The goblins in the market did not like my taste in women
“You should identify as a pan-flower”
They righteously good and sweet, to everyone they meet
A pan-flower only blooms in the mouth of the bed
That day I counted one who tripped straight and bent again
The market sellers murmured to me- ‘Do not believe they know which side they are on’
‘Changes it like a bat, one night here, another night there’.
Another seller brings out the purple and orange coloured label to throw at me,
Says it is bright and shiny, like the sun rising on your face
The sellers pointed, the nails all crusty brown, and smirked- ‘Did you ever fancy the clothes
of the opposite gender?’
‘I have only worn shorts once and played rugby with the men’.
One seller with short hair, slides in like a snake I have met,
‘Do you wanna build a man in your life? To be the man you could not be? Then this label is
for you’.
A corporate gleam shone the brightest in his eye, surpassing the Sun in his UV-shaded glory
‘The conditions are exact, very tenuously so, you do not get to pick and choose
Prepare for a lifelong of suffering, that which would start the creation of poems
Sappho would rise up from the grave for’.
The thinking in my brain evermore stopping when
I saw something moving in the bush- hidden and scared- with hairy legs and arms
It was a woman coming up to me,
Shaking me like O. Henry’s pathetic last leaf- ‘You! Do not admit it is a phase! They have
left me now on this wild goose chase,
I found my Bennet, but she says I don’t hate men enough’
The sellers chimed in, with their tongues pouring out; ‘Remember to fill up your dislike of
testosterone, not enough to wax out your own,
Wear clothes and indulge in the imaginary penis-measuring contest,
Whose flannel bears more checks and whose suit is more decked
Check the length of your pants, do not worry if lumberjacks and you have no difference
That is the quintessential way of calculating lesbian-ness.
Or it could be the pink all over, wearing bows and corsets, a princess dressed for a
butch-(err)’
Another seller walked towards me with confident strides,
Told the others, ‘This person is the one made for my product!’
Let me introduce you to the Secret Manifesto of Gay, Anna Wintour’s children have written
on it as well,
‘The Devil Wears Prada’ was the heralding of the LGBTQIA+ movement,
Supposed to be a man but casting directors chose Meryl Streep, out of fear for the opinion of
the weak.
The sellers confided in me,
An insider secret, but the audience would put on their snowflake costume
Cry and yell for this abhorrent movie to end
Which is sad because Legally Blonde did it anyways.
‘The Prada shoes did make a return, just in the courtroom of a judge’ I responded.
My friend had turned up Carly Rae Jepsen the other morning,
Then came a phone call during the witches’ hour,
And I could hear them say ‘Call me maybe one summer day’.
There was this one seller who kept on screaming,
‘If one is confused whether to like waffles or pancakes, then they most probably like both
The pan-flowers and the by-flowers fight always
They argue about queues and who stood first for the umbrellas
One wants a whole umbrella to themselves and the others want it to be shared.”
I sigh and look towards the outskirts of the market,
There standing in lonesome groups, a seller seems to struggle drawing a box out,
I rush to help and pick it up,
Standing upright, I notice the term and blink in confusion
‘Yes! Could it be that the confusion I feel is the complicated spectrum of disgust?
I don’t want to touch anyone, the contact of finger upon finger, makes my skin crawl,
The seller comes up and smiles in knowledge- ‘Do you wish curses and anger upon anyone
who treats you to a special show of Fanny Hill?
To say-You can play Fanny and I will run for the hills’
A flashback is in due process suddenly, a girl I had kissed (another one), inquired ‘Do you
not want to hug me?’
I who was a mortal man, with fluctuating standards for skinship,
Tagged myself as a germophobe and let it be known as the reason.
The other seller had burnt a hardcover edition of Pride and Prejudice
Holding litmus strips in one hand, a guy stood questioning his life,
I asked what need would those fulfill,
‘To figure out if I am sex positive or neutral’ was the reply made by Swift.
There was another friend who had slept in the closet for a while
Emerged out, divided in two selves,
A man and a woman indeed.
The registrar who took their name for a medical exam
Asked them to write whichever one they preferred.
There was tremendous confusion- the doctor called out Jeremiah and Mia
Both stood up like soldiers set out for war, not at ease in the gender they wear,
The white man screeched “Who is dead? Jeremiah or Mia?”
Most probably their parents now, I grimaced in understanding.
The confused glances of the sellers make me conscious,
‘You haven’t picked on a label yet?’
‘Why? Do you not like this?’
I flinch and cower, thoroughly drenched in shame
This, might be the last few lines I speak,
Because the sellers are holding weapons that would make Goliath weep
‘This might, that might, I don’t know, why should I know- that is all you can throw’ shouts
the sellers
The ears red, and them becoming like Tyrannosaurus Rex
I start to run and they use throw sticks and stones,
Sweating through the last of these troubles, wishing bad luck on whoever laughs,
‘Reminder to anyone who didn’t know, sticks and stones do break bones and teeth’
I cross over hills and plains, all geographical formations that could ever be discovered
And not,
This is where the final message clears through ‘You are not queer enough bloody
munchkin!!’.
I stop and the Sun stops with me, pulls out their shade, and tsks through,
The exit act it is, because I drop my measly self apart,
Pick apart the pages to become Dr Arbuthnot for a dime
There are some who take labels and some who take jokes, and there are some who do not
take any,
So my dear readers, if Dr Arbuthnot doesn’t ask you for a bashing
Please do not take this as a slight offence
You can love and lead, do whatever you please
Just not in my bed.
If a label likes you and you like it back, then that is enough,
But remember, what you call love, cannot be done in one term justice enough.
