The Metro's First Compartment

By Ayushi Khare

Girls, wrapped in scarves,

Pretty scars, scarred prettiness.

Ears aware of every music this thing serves,

The next station, the one which went by.

The voice they hear from the faces they never see,

which, like many others,

tell them, you know, to be behind a line to stay safe.

The hastily moving fingers on phones,

The rhythmic move of heads with music in ears:

to forget things or to remember some.

Some eyes waiting, some stating, some just staring into nothingness.

Hair tied to tell you all today wasn't a easy day,

Or maybe,just a bad hair one.

Red lips and nails to tell the fierceness the tongue could not,

hands not anymore soft,aged with experience, sometimes.

Some other times, the destiny wasn't too soft, either!

Fast running feet, which were once tied to walls of a room with smokes,

Yester nervous eyes, confident today.

Blank faces some, asking which one train goes where:

oblivious how life has been out of their sofas sets and stained bedsheets.

Some dressed up as festivals, and all they wear match,

letting something in their lives be in their own domination.

Some wrapped up to not let the evil in the world touch them,

unsure if it even exist.

Some dressed like actresses in movies, to let you know of dreams.

Some with children chatting across poles,

to let their mother know they aren't afraid, and so should not she fear.

Some just in a corner, playing the guessing game like I do.

To know, that which smile hold which pain,

Which feet has been stopped from going where?

Wondering, how is unjust the natural,
the unfairness to them the usuality?

How can't the world see
the seive they use to look at her and me, 
is sieving their integrity out of it. 
There are eyes which are seeing outside the glass windows-

while the world builds fences so tall 
trying anxiously to clutter barbed wires over it, 
so they can't climb.

When you try and cut their wings 
They see you flutter with the ego you balloon yourself with 
And while seeing you, without blaming,
we'd just slide their invalidation down your door 
No fences and wings useful for you anymore 
to let you know 
We are not the flower vase in your drawing room. 
Or maybe when we wake tomorrow morn
We'd rather not mourn the way you popularize our 
inefficiency , inefficacy or inability to revolt 
Through lenses which see feeble instead of strength, 
Meekness instead of rebel, 
Objects instead of blood, bones, veins tongues and jaws
Which can create words and breathe, 
Which answer questions your cameras capture, 
As you wish our existence to rupture. 
But please know that we'll scream,
even if you want us to screech. 
That depictions can't define us,
I am not metaphors, or hazy dreams.
I am as human as you think you can be.