She is …

Reluctant handshakes,

their too-polite smiles,

carefully measured out , tensed distance between bodies.

She rubbed her skin against their pretensions,

layers of modesty lie scattered on the floor.

Her eyes were too sharp for their liking,

her night sojourns disturbing.

Stepping into their exclusive dominions,

she had torn away their egotistic skin-

charred yesterdays fell down from her burning tongue.

That’s when they started worshiping her.

Standing beside her-

their reflections revealed

distorted self-images.

In their quivering voice, they chanted

‘she is different from the rest’.

They saw, but refused to believe-

that she had crowded the streets

smiling, strolling, chatting, eating,

screaming, fighting, drinking

singing and dancing in the rain,

she had exploded into a myriad of hues and

had left the mark of her lips

all around.

Quest

‘Your poetry is full of you’

They said.

Don’t they see that

these are my desperate attempts to-

grab hold of the peeling layers

as the self oozes out of my skin?

Or, may be I wasn’t aware that the

doppleganger had set a mirror-house inside.

with grinning reflections and blinding patterns

that played on my nerves.

The same song on rain and love

has been running on loop for days

and I fail to recollect

even a single line from it.

This untamed mind tires me.

It has seen ‘Waste Lands, Confessions and suicide notes’.

and is bent on seeking  those hide-outs-

where shadows mate and the self is dragged out of the womb.