The idea that blood can be on one's 'neck' is as commonplace in Urdu as the counterpart idea in English that someone's blood can be on someone else's 'head'. Both idioms use blood as a metaphor for guilt, like the 'burden' of guilt that the sinner carries on his 'shoulders'. The same kind of guilt can result in one's owing a 'blood-price'; on this see 21,9 . At the center of the verse is the strange idea-- hardly a visual image, it's too abstract-- that the 'right/claim of relationship' is something that can be on someone's neck like blood, as though relationship had been slain and the beloved could be reproached for having the blood of 'the right of relationship' on her head (or neck, in Urdu). This does put the unfortunate beloved in a difficult position: her choice seems to be only between two kinds of blood-guilt. Presumably she is called 'heedless' because she didn't realize the problem: she thought, wrongly, that by refusing to kill an innocent person she would escape blood-guilt. For a better, more complex verse about the beloved's unwillingness to slay the lover, see 19,4 . graphics/swordwielder.jpg