Boxed Existences

Boxed Existences

Ostracized by civilized hearts,
A dalit girl with dark complexion
built a house out of dark nights;
Stayed within it, day in and day out.

Oppression was a daily experience.

Humiliation, a day to day reality.

On the search for herself, people around
Offered a hundred labels, suggestions abound.
Her neighbor next door has an opinion:
That she's a girl with questionable character.
Her ex-boy friend has an 'honest' remark:
That she's a slut, playing the victim card.

Emptied bottles of wine helped;
Kept the whining away, scars remained.

Life tendered no respect;
Death promised no dignity, and so
Sleep was her daily kiss of death- often,
She slipped her way into broken slumber.

Buried between the pillow and the bed,
wanders her mind like a bird
that sits on the tree of happiness
for a moment, on the sands
of disappointment, after few seconds.
Frustration looms and sadness chokes.

As she keeps thinking them all over again:
A theater of internal conflict, inside her mind.
Who're these humans? she wants to know.
Struck by realization, she found
They're, but entrapped beings;
living in their boxed existences.

Chuckled, as she thought of it,
Repaired she, her broken self.
Despite that comeback,
The circus of civilization
never seizes to amuse! Only
that now she has the last laugh!



Saravanan