I want Eve to walk into a church
naked, Snapchatting her strut to
Kali, who responds with her own
tipsy stagger into a temple, clothes
from last night hanging off her in
crumpled ribbon-strings, tongue
stuck out with two fingers held
up under in the sign of peace (or is it
one of triumphant victory?), the antics
from the evening enshrined into
digital immortality on Amaterasu’s
Instagram page, hashtagged with
#FreeTheNipple, a cheeky homage,
echoed in Hera’s Facebook share of
yet another post from a feminist page,
liked by Isis, who engages the
absolute scum in pointless debate,
demanding positivity, she struggles to
claim, but still proclaims her body
as a shrine that she’s worshipped in,

and as the ridicule pours in, the
Goddesses stand tall, and unashamed
Laughing in the face of aghast disciples,
As they reclaim
reclaim
reclaim.

- Harnidh Kaur

“Well, I’m an atheist who grew up in a Sikh household, for one, and I also studied history. So for me, religions, gods, goddesses, they’re all just stories that demand reinterpretation. In particular, i hope that the poem humanizes goddesses. They’re not infallible. It’s a commentary on the fact that women aren’t, either. The pedestals they’re held on are actually cages, and they need to be systematically broken down.”

Illustration by Priyanka Paul’s ‘Goddesses’ series.