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

…

Dee is from Lahore, Pakistan. Loves dark nights and old trees.