lonely places ~
they grow inside you:
sometimes one is born
with
a mark of loneliness-
so
i looked at my body;
every inch
and half inch of it-
and found:
the ordinary moles-
scars of climbed trees
that bumb into the bedpost at night
but
no mark of loneliness-
tired –
i turned to canvas
and drew mirrors
women who looked back at me-
women who are me
who am i?
(they don’t want you to ask
it’s a rather embarrassing question)
you know the answers they want:
a daughter
a wife
a sister
a jack of all…
a mother…
bloating, bleeding, pouring
scraping the canvas to find secrets
beneath the surface
under the skin
clawing at the bone
scratching at my soul-
those women can’t be this one woman that
rebels
so
be
either
a
a daughter
a wife
a sister
a jack of all…
a mother…
beneath the folds of my being
lies my corpse
is breathing enough
or
does living require more than that?
how can one tell living living from existing-
i want to live
to breathe
fly
swim
float
love
fall madly in love
time for everything
but not in one lifetime
what will i choose then
life?
love?
i
paint a bit of both
chiseling my way onto canvas
scraping paint off the pallet
mixing blood and pain
i rise
resurrect
lifting my aching self
from the mundane so
grows within
its tentacles
like a vine
wrapping its delicate veins
around my body
choking the air from my lungs
it
corrodes my will
and the umbilical cord suffocates
i slip into a tired sleep-
they will wonder
how i died
for years
decades write about me
mystifying my death
forgetting the stifling life
of how one tries to breathe
in the claustrophobia we call
.
.
.
.
.
.
life
~ amrita sher gil
