Beautiful In Sadness

By Sindhu Verma

I could have been beautiful in my sadness.

My eyes, after I had cried them out,

Could have looked kohl-rimmed like those of a myna;

My cheeks lurid, stained and red,

Could have been like sunset melting into a pond.

I could have glided down gently like a cleft leaf,

Drooped gracefully like an unwatered plant;

I could have silently wept like a lit candle,

Burnt and gone out with a sooty fragrance;

I could have died and shrunk like a flower

Between pages of a wistful diary.

I could have grieved like the moon,

Turned my face away but come around again;

I could have lilted like a plaintive song,

Sweet and pleasing in its squirm;

And if I had been this anodyne when in pain,

You would have liked being around me.

But the way I am,

Hissing and raging like a fire,

Calloused and prickly like a thorn,

Gaping and seething like a volcano,

Glaring and bleeding like a wound,

You only watch from a distance.

By Sindhu Verma