Stones

by Padmini Krishnan

They watch her

with scorn, amusement,

and laughter.

She is too quiet.

Why doesn’t she laugh,

talk, joke or shout?

they whisper,

but loud enough for her to hear.

She finds a stone in her shoe.

She is too talkative,

too loud and flirts,

they condemn.

She finds more stones in her shoes.

The perpetrators are not men,

but women who pull down

their kind.

They throw more stones every day

until she staggers

and finds it unbearable,

but she never falls.

Now she has learned to throw

the stones away and

walk with her head high

whereas her gossipers

look for a new victim

with hands full of stones.

* * * * *

Padmini Krishnan writes haiku, poetry and short stories. Her recent work has appeared in Bleached Butterfly, Terror House Magazine, Balloon Lit. Journal and Proletaria. She blogs in https://call2read.wordpress.com/