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Writer's pictureAishwarya Jayal

The Almirah

I feel like an Almirah today.

Standing in the static corner

Of a well lived room.

There’s parts of me,

That will never see the light

Right at the very end,

Of my usefulness.


Within me lies the superficial essence of life;

Human shape shifting skins: clothes.

And every-time someone seeks me,

I have to barter skins.

Lost in this dimension of the seen;

My relevance is drawn from the skin I wear.


There’s some stickers on me,

Memoirs from the past.

Some tearing away, into ugly sticky misshapen marks;

Just leaving behind the distaste,

Of a once seemingly happy badge.

Others faded, but still whole defining parts of my skin;

And the new ones,

They are the passions of the moment

Unknown if they will grace survival.


What I’m prized for most,

Is the ability to show them, themselves.

A mirror on a stable surface,

The one which can show you the truth,

But where you see exactly what you want to.

A big pimple, a faded dress, a bulging sack of fat

A critical smile at the end of it all,

To measure the joy to be dished out by

An unfinished, familiar body.


By bits and pieces,

Everything around me constantly changes.

Either moved in relativity,

Or replaced, with the better.

Maybe I’m the constant in a sea of changes;

Or maybe that which is heavy,

Isn’t easy to move

And so stays put,

Glaringly apparent,

Yet the blind spot in a sea of light.


Once in a long while,

Someone shifts me around to clean.

To visit the forgotten fourth dimension,

Of my incongruous existence.

They exclaim at the vermin I’ve fostered,

And the dust I’ve saved,

Behind me.


But then, isn’t there another life within the shadows,

Multiplying when untouched for too long?

And this life is what there is,

All there is,

Between me and the wall of oblivion.


I creak plaintively when I open,

But we humans don't understand

All the languages we could speak.

And so I stay shut;

Jamming my doors, tighter

Till one day,

They will be pulled apart;

And everything inside will come pouring out;

The mirror will break,

I will fall;

And all my pieces,

Will get to move again.


Some days, I am just a obvious yet inconspicuous piece of furniture in a well-lived room.

And on these days, I can barely feel more than the space I occupy.

Weird right!? Do you ever feel the same?

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1件のコメント


vohravipul
2021年8月13日

Details and perspectives in this one are just mind blowing! Awesome read! Another perspective I can think of this is when an almirah is disassembled for movement to a new place. It can serve as an analogy to being broken down, not knowing where you are going next - only to be reassembled/picking up the pieces (repairs etc. making you stronger perhaps) to start a new life. And in that new life/role maybe you get more sunshine and serve a greater purpose :)

いいね!
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