The kitten ran Helter skelter Scared, very scared Neighborhood kids Tried to reason with it But it was too small Full of fear Confused maybe Maybe it felt attacked While actually it was Being rescued
Rescuers didn’t earn Its trust perhaps But they were sure It ought to trust them The more they tried Befriending it More it shrank Into the shadows
Lessons in trust Are most difficult To learn It’s a language It’s an action That promises safety Both sides need to be Calm and patient To set this dialogue stage On safe middle grounds
What is the language of trust? What is the language of love? No one teaches these We are supposed to learn them Context, syntax and meaning Most often we learn the hard way After the trust is broken And love breaks the trust
In that darkness Tiny kitten couldn’t see Trust or love in the eyes While everyone saw Fear in its eyes When they backed off It ran for its life Away from the life It took a while For it to return To this game of Hide and seek again
Maybe it will survive Maybe it won’t Depends on what lurks In the darkness One can only hope It finds its way to To the bowl of milk Waiting for it Food often builds trust So does tender care
Tenderness is rare No one teaches us that too Knowingly, unknowingly It comes our way Like the gentle breeze That helps us breathe
Love can be suffocating It can smother and kill What it pretends to protect While trying to control We never try to understand Children’s language Instead we expect them To comprehend ours
Children too run Helter skelter With fear in the eyes Unsure why Mistrust masquerades As trust And anger as love Like Pavlov’s subjects Why does it all Have to be reward Or punishment?
When will we learn To back off? And wait patiently With food and trust On the table And tender love in Our hearts?
There is a lump Stuck in my throat It can’t be removed Surgically It just stays there Just like the abyss In my heart or perhaps brain I keep sinking into A free fall With no rock bottom With no voice To scream for rescue Not sure whether There is a rescue team As neither my internal abyss Nor lump in my throat Is visible or audible That’s what it is For most women I am told You learn to stay afloat Put a brave front And you scream internally Without letting out a whimper You accept praises and criticisms Whatever comes your way You assume you have a purpose Or a role Until you decide to step away From the roleplays To realise You are invisible too The world never sees you as a person But rather as a wife or mother or sister You step away And you are reduced to a nobody How liberating is that!! They care only till you care You like a fool kept caring Letting them humiliate The Law of reciprocity Is always learnt a hard way But apply it Just like everyone does In every other sphere You will see What you hold together Collapses as a pack of cards And then you realise The cards were rigged With misogyny To remain as an object or As a person with lump In the throat And Abyss in the heart To sink without a sound
Step and snap out now Out of the roleplay To find your own voice And your sense of balance You will be visible To those who want to see you Rest do not matter At least you will be visible To your damned self
In that damn mirror!
Image courtesy: Anuran Kar Gupta, Physics researcher based in Paris
Mad Decadence 