Jyothy Sreedhar

That page…

With the smoke whirling up from the hot pages of my diary,

a nude face shows up, expressions torn off.

It was years before, when my words were wet and eyes were dry.

The lips were sealed with an invisible, crossed, dry band aid

that proved a slow poison to my spirited soul.

I lost the expression of my impressions

which were more of depression

under rules of suppression.

 

I used to read Margaret Atwood who shouted, longing for freedom

for expressing her rustic thoughts in her deserted existence.

Emily Dickinson tried hard to seduce me with the beauty of death

and Sylvia Plath raised her magic wand many times.

Death itself stood as a romantic lover with want for lust

and I had felt to throw myself for him whenever he looked at me.

The voice of a tearing paper that I wished was forever

echoed in the midnight darkness of a nervous breakdown.

That was a time when humans were blind

and they loved the dark.

Prometheus changed it all.

 

In the light that he had gifted us,

I turned back to that page and I got scared.

I wondered why my retina was cracked, and ears were hidden.

I couldn’t understand what the half-wound chain meant.

 

I could just recollect that I was mad…

Or was I the most normal in reality?

Because, I never had a dream then…