A letter to my broken self

My dear broken self,

Hi (whispers), I know you’re in there. There is no need for you to hide anymore. Here, take my hand, my, you’re so cold, yes almost there, come step out into the light. No, I’m not going to put the blinds on. What is it? Yes, I am finally acknowledging you. You see I have realized that being broken is okay. That is how the light gets in. Of course, it will take some time for you to get accustomed to the brightness. Me too.      

Frankly, I have been ignoring your existence for as long as I remember like you’re an ominous spirit but you’re not. I know it took me too long to accept that you are a part of me. You are me. I am you. We are broken. I am broken. 

Not the romanticised version shamelessly glorified in the captions of oodles of pictures floating around on Facebook and Instagram. Not like my muse who would inspire my art or ignite my creative spirit but more in a way that I am drowning or burning. both At the same time. Burnt and drowning. The burden of my existence weighing me down to the seabed.

You run your thumb over your rough edges contemplating how much harder you can press before it slices your skin like muslin cut neatly into pieces for its dexterity in stitching your superhero suit. Your armour. You don’t leave the house without it anymore. 

You’ve weaved your cocoon with the loose strings from every failed relationship. A pretty rainbow with the scarlet dyed with the lost love, parakeet green with your envious brooding, canary yellow with your eccentricities and a dark blue with the dying light of a flickering candle. 

The thorns as the mistakes in your life now embellish your fort wall. The moat around it reeks of disappointment and betrayal. You are now familiar with that scent to the extent that it feels homely. 

You trudge past the deserted streets of what was a flourishing town inside you once. Now all abandoned almost in haste, as if by the cause of some natural catastrophe, uprooting the entire settlement. What remains is a ghost town. Empty buildings, empty blocks, empty roads. 

You who left a “ You “ shaped hole in me.

As you take all your pieces and try to make meaning out of them by arranging into a jigsaw puzzle but you figure out that they won’t fit. You see some of them have gone missing. The Rubik’s cube can’t be solved as gaping holes stare at you from places where there used to be the coloured blocks. 

I have peeked at you lying down on your back with a lousy finger at the stars, connecting them like dots spelling D E S P A I R.

You’re a puppet, with strings attached and pulled by the information you've  acquired from a duly memorized manual of how to behave in certain common social settings and situations. “Oh thank you, yes, please. Smile, nod, repeat.”

Stale breath with repeated pleasantries.

You’re spending a lot of time by yourself lately. Alone time. However, I see that you’ve started to stray into the other side. You scout around the boundary of ‘alone’ before crossing to the pool of loneliness where you lose your way and seldom return. I have seen that it gives you a warm snuggly feeling of comfort to succumb into the abyss. 

You feel uneasy. A strange quivering sensation swallowing the entire body with a whirlpool emanating from the belly, feasting on your normal body mechanisms, to grow into a tornado rising up. I rush to the washroom. A gag reflex, a forward jerk in the neck, (gag reflex) huh…no vomiting. Again. False alarms again.

Nothing comes out.

Not even the tears anymore. They too have dried up. I hear the tear glands were rescued from the flooded areas as the water level had risen beyond the danger level. 

I have forgotten the trails of dampness running down my cheeks and their salty taste kissing the corners of my lips.

Smeared mascara like the hollow dungeons deep and dark where once your eyes would light up like the crackling fire in a cozy barn on a frosty night.

I think it is time for me to change my mirror. You see, it is not my reflection staring back at me anymore. OR maybe its time to change myself. 

To complete myself by accepting you. 

I, that is you and me, are okay. This is okay.

See, we’re even warmer now

Now let’s stop loathing in self-pity for you see,

I have mountains to move, and absolutely no time to lose 

So what if I’m broken, who isn’t?

A Safe Day

I lie down in my bed of thorns tonight
And scream
And scream into the abyss
Sharp thorns schematically laid out by the likes of you
Scratching and piercing through my flesh
Washing over my body trickling out warm crimson
Cleansing it with fresh wounds
Is what I have rehearsed often enough
For your unfaltering belief and courage
That my body is your private property
Failed to deter you from groping my parts
Branding me with bruises
As I play board in your game of darts

The walls of my room closing in like the caressing arms of my mother
Coaxing me to shout, to let it all out
Telling me that my wild shrieks will be absorbed and dissolved
Like they never even left my mouth
 I part my lips but no voice comes out

My steady stride with the chin held up high
Burnt a big hole in your majestic patriarchal kingdom
Where my being comfortable in my own skin is a sin
You stood there, creepily conscious of my unconsciousness
Towards the way my hips swayed as I crossed you
What an inextinguishable fire! Such adamantine pride?
How dare she?
She shall be condemned for her audacity to be herself in my world

You exhibit your prowess as a skillful archer, as you tie taut the string of chauvinism
And pull out your arrows of insults
At a closer range, your aim is brilliant
And you never miss a shot!
Penetrating the canvas of my skin
Like a voodoo doll lying flat with a dozen pins poking out,
You curse me.

I gulp down the coagulated lump of:
“Your eyes are like slits,
You have thinner than iron rod wrists,
You stole your nose from Pinocchio
Dear God, eww your crooked smile
Your gait is so slutty
Is she sending me an invite?”
No!

My gaze has lowered down to 45 degrees now,
And I fastened my pace
Just to come across the next of your kin
Holding up the criticism revolver
Oh, he had me at gunpoint
Pelting bullets of the expectations of a tiny waist, a fuller bust,
Fairer complexion and a shapely butt
I made a dash for cover but too late!
The bug of body shaming bit me
Adhering  to the rules laid out by the
 Ministry of Socially acceptable beauty standards worldwide
In a memorandum issued for the welfare of the existing male privilege
Enclosing a long list of “What’s hot and what’s not”

I rushed to the mirror to catch a glimpse.
To my utter horror,
I failed to recognize the reflection that stared back at me
Because this morning,
“My eyes were nothing but the brightest stars in the darkest night,
My wrists were docile and dainty
My smile was a million watt bedazzling fireworks
My body was fit and healthy
And I was grateful for my two feet to walk straight.”
But now the remnant is dead and hollow.
 
I violently scratch and dig in my nails to peel the epidermis
Hoping to leave it behind to be renewed by a fresh layer
Like a snake does
Praying to replace it with the fairness and curves “at the right places”
Or to pull it out like the cream floating on piping hot tea
For my breezy blue t-shirt looking like a beautiful summer daydream earlier
Is now soaked in red to turn into a scary lilac like the storm brewing
In my body, in my mind, in my soul.

I step out the next to next day
For the immediate next was too painful
This time my head is barely raised enough to ensure that I don’t trip and fall
Tongue dry, breath sucked in, scared of taking too much space of your world
Of literally existing
I stealthily walk towards my class
Like a feeble lamb avoiding the butcher’s sight
You can smell fear, I hear
Like a hungry hound salivating
Breathing down my neck
You caught me by hair and yanked
As I fell back into oblivion

The raging uproar is nothing like ever before
A different intense and consuming pain has taken over
One which remains alien to me
Worse than banging the poor pinky against the bed’s corner
Or the 1st heartbreak over a lover’s spat
The paper cuts hurt less too
Much less than a foreign man flouting the moral code
Breaching the boundaries to grab and hold
Even the thief comes stealing at ‘night’, tiptoeing in cautiously
Silently between bated breath and whispers
But the big man on the street, who had grabbed me without any forewarning
Sans any inhibitions or a double minded thought
In broad daylight, with no discretion whatsoever
Like it is the most natural thing in the world to do
Never more have I wished to own Harry’s invisibility cloak.

I get to hear, “Send me the coordinates of your cab.” More than “How was your day?”
When I am alone in the taxi,
I pretend to give my location on the call, although my phone is dead
Carrying a pepper spray is far more of a necessity than the sunscreen in summers
For the sunburns are temporary
I slog an extra hour in the self-defense class after my day at work
The averted eyes in the rearview mirror burn like a laser beam through my body
As my hand instinctively jolts to check any unattended visible bra strap or a hint of cleavage
Or my bare arms, or lips or merely my eyes
Any part visible might be capable of distracting him
 My sent messages are out flowing with “Reached home safely” texts
Other times my male colleagues drop me till where my brother or father stand, from one male member to another,
Like a baton in a relay race, they take me to the finish line

I lie down in my bed of thorns tonight
But breathe a sigh of relief for another safe day








Here is the YouTube link of the narration - A Safe Day

Don't touch me

The chipped nail paint, the cracked heels, the tan lines of the torn flip-flops, the unshaved legs and the desperate toes clutching onto the bed sheet silently screaming, " Please don't touch me. Please !"

Please refrain from touching anybody without their consent.

Women are not your punching bag. Physical abuse is no way to vent your accumulated, deep dark anger. 

These incidents leave them scarred and broken for life. 

Can you take somebody doing it to you?

#stop_marital_rape
#stop_domestic_violence
#stop_physical_abuse