Ananya Beher
a sweet simmering ensues when i use my mother's makeup. exalting my epiphanies alluding to the awe of my conception crowned. when i wore my mother's dupatta my brother told me i looked pretty; my mother told me i should change because if dad saw me, all hell would break loose. he came back home later that night and he screamed a word that i didn't know about. i was angry and sad, and cried a lot, thinking that make-up was a girl's muse. my father told me, 'i should man up.' i nodded for i was numb with pain. looking back, i laugh because i was so wrong. me dressing up didn't anger him. me being a 'chakka' did. mom told me that i should have changed but 6-year-old me asked, 'why? you can apply make-up. why can't i?' she was stunned, and had no answers. she was ashamed, that i could tell. she told me to turn heartbreak into kindness. and turn the toxic curses to sweet words. that day on, i used my mother's saree to fulfill my wishes of dressing up. i learned not to cry. i learned that dressing up wasn't wrong. my brother taught me to turn the healing words into a garden of love. 'some people are an elixir; some are a venom. you must learn to distinguish between who will stain you with crude poison and who will enrich your soul with their aura.' i stand today, loud and proud, of who i am. long gone was the boy who cried infront of his father. there stood a young man who did what he loved. he dresses up, paint his nails, glams up himself and makes his hair. my dad didn't remember, when he saw me, what he called me earlier. yet, his harshness made a permanent scar, that sat above my eyebrow, reminding me of the times he didn't accept me; when he called me a 'hijra' and demeaned me. i look back and realize how thankful i am. life's battles will continue on and on but me, i will still be the man who liked dressing up.
the len(z) 