This Poem On Bisexuality Highlights The Pain Of Hiding Half Your Love

There’s a certain quality of anger every woman in this world inherently possesses; merely a response to the years worth of injustice and unfair dogmas we’ve been subjected to. However, it’s not just us women, it’s every human being who isn’t a heterosexual male of a dominant race, religion, culture and ethnicity. Two years ago, I met a girl at university, whose rage wasn’t quite like that of most women’s—or even mine for that matter.

She had a knack for poetry and moved audiences with her dialogues on feminism and equality. Unlike every other infuriated rant, each sentence had an undertone of melancholy. Her eyes spoke with a piercing sense of sadness; she reminded me of a child who had just been told that her drawing wasn’t good enough to be pinned up on the fridge.

Then about a year ago at a poetry event, in front of an audience of loved ones, acquaintances, strangers and their cameras, she told us a story—a story of how half of the love songs she wrote could not be spoken, a tale of how only half of her identity was allowed to be openly spoken about, let alone exist. She told us a story of a bisexual girl who was still not allowed to pin her drawing up on the fridge, because instead of a boy, the drawing was of two girls holding hands.

Manasi Nene is a 20 year old student from Pune, who founded the Pune Poetry Slam. Her poem is an intimate look into her life as a bisexual woman, in the midst of India’s stringent and uncompromising laws on homosexuality. With the advent of Pride Month, I began to wonder how I would feel if I wasn’t allowed to express my love for the people I cared for the most, I began to wonder of a world in which my identity wasn’t even given the basic right of being seen as a legal entity. “Half My Love Poems” is an emotional and refreshing look into the more fundamental struggles of the LGBTQI community, breaking it down to the basic elements of love and identity.

“Half my love poems will not be heard,

because half this love cannot be expressed

because I’m not supposed to love half the people I can.

So far, I stand alone in this.

I am a candle, burning at both ends,

but light bends around one side,

it does not know how to go straight;

it only knows how to burn.

And it was a tough lesson to learn

but now,

I know how to hide half my light.

I decide what people see in me

and so far it’s the fire that burns

straight

but it’s love, not hate that I hide.

Half my love poems will not be heard, because

I break rules half the time -

half my love is a crime -

half my love poems will never be published because

half this love can be punished, like I need

to lessen my love,

to hide my heart,

to silence my spirit;

half my love poems will not be written because

half the time I’m smitten by

grace, by beauty, by poise;

all wonderful qualities,

and not always found in boys,

so I hide half my light.

But I am a poet;

when I feel, I really feel

and half the times I don’t know how to deal with it.

I am a poet;

when I fall, I really fall;

not with half my heart, with all of it;

I am a poet

and I have my pride, even when

my nerves are fried

and my knees are weak

and my head is spinning,

it’s a never-ending game of hide-and-seek

that I know I’m not winning,

and I’m made to feel my love is sinning

so I wait to heal, but the weight

is filling me

up, up, up,

up, I go,

I know love feels like heaven,

And a heart is < than 3 but

this is less than three seventy seven;

I don’t ask for much,

but only half my love comes cheap;

I trade the other half for

too many cigarettes

and too little sleep

it feels like I’m drowning

but I can’t go in too deep,

it feels like

too many heartbeats for one ribcage,

like too much love for one poem or one page

like too much hate for a world so full of disgrace

like everyone’s laughing at me and I need

to keep a straight face

like I’m down for the count

after too many bouts

like at the end of the day,

only half my love counts.

We act like we can measure love -

buy it, barter it like a box of Lego blocks.

Like anything even depends on whether or not we fit together.

Like human beings are a formula,

and aberrations can be tamed,

like this is an aberration

and aberrations can be blamed on

anything except

your ability

to accept them.

All my love makes me stop in my tracks,

brake twice as hard

though this heart, double-size,

can break twice as hard.

Twice the people to my love -

twice the starts, twice the departures,

twice the art,

and only half the reach.

Only some will hear it.

We’re not used to so much love, we’re scared to go near it.

It’s a strange kind of love, not hate, but we fear it though

it’s everywhere.

As wide as wide can go,

as deep as deep can be.

There’s so much of it everywhere

but only half that we can see.

Half my love poems will not be heard

until all love can be treated

equally.”

- Manasi Nene

You can watch the video here:

You can follow Manasi Nene on her Facebook and Twitter

You can follow and know more about the Pune Poetry Slam here.