By Tanisha Babbar
Old and new textbooks
Highlighting the chaos of her mind
Are the first witnesses
To that time.
Watery soul
Settled with the sand of sins
Unbeknownst to the child
Refusing to stick.
They don't let her fly
Whose faith in humanity was slashed
At the age of nine.
A virgin mind
Underwent an ignoble infusion
A snake hissing lies
Candor behind her eyes.
A box quivering with life
Locks the veracity
From polygraphic eyes
Capturing what they see.
And the key is dropped
In the Pacific of words
An undressing
A whisper
Lips that laughed afterwards.
Eyes arrested in terror
Pleadings of not telling anyone
Teasings of spreading it like a wildfire
How juvenile, how naive
How despicable who toyed!
A secret spilled on the sheet
A paperweight of distaste
An anchor of ugliness
If lifted
IF lifted
Would render her unbecoming.
To the bulbs
That light
That celebrate
Her comely presence
She is dying each day.
Fancying its unhappening
Like the vain attempts
Of gluing together
Shatters of a glass
This futility is disheartening.
These fragments will pierce
And cut open her skin
When stepped upon them
In moments of ignorant bliss.
Her soul is darkened
Is stained
Is tainted
With tinctures of violence
That weren't her paintings.