Behind The veil

By Sudeshna Chandra

I have heard stories of constellations.

Seen clouds wander about the sky too.

Never been them though,

Only dreamt of it all.

I have heard of the auroras.

Even seen time lapses of the universe whirl round the place from where a person in flesh

and blood witnesses it all.

But have never felt it reflecting on my eyeballs,

not the universe in my iris.

I have felt the air reverberate with the soft vibrations of a bird’s song

at the crack of dawn, when my eyes emerge from the comforting darkness of my sewn and fabricated illusion.

A menace in a human, I try to sing along in unison,

and then catch myself before I drown away my duty to some dull-witted legal compulsion.

I have glimpsed at the world ever so little,

not through my checkered vision,

Instead through the unbarred vastness of perception,

an exception to my veiled reality.

I have read of the daffodils waving in the breeze,

even seen wicker baskets filled with daisies on the front basket of a pink bicycle. 

Never rode one though.

Not my feet on the pedals cycling me towards my roman empire.

I have seen cherries as red as vermilion,

hanging alongside vine climbers and bougainvillea;

on a rocky pebble path that leads me to a mysterious chateau alongside the sparkling blue Seine.

In images? Yes.

Not with my feet on the rocky beaches taking in the cold exhilaration of the delphinium water.

I have seen girls like me,

roaming on the streets wild and free,

without their mahram at their feet,

tramping on the shadows of their liberty.

I saw, from behind closed doors, in a dimly lit corridor,

A sliver of the intricacies of a blossoming life. 

Where the mother gutturally screamed herself into the void,

and I found myself wishing for my hands to reach out in aid,

before I was slapped back into the cage so carefully made.

I have seen the Mona Lisa through pixels,

and have seen the starry nights, eons ago, in that stolen art magazine from the bookstore of an old grumpy man. 

Even dreamt of standing inches away from the dreams that engulf cerebrums through centuries,

Not felt it brush against the tips of my fingers though.

What have I felt then, you ask?

Well, now I feel my eyelashes brush against the veil that adorns what they call my dignity,

and the temptation of my voice die in my throat,

as, if I am heard, I might cease to feel the breath fill my lungs.

Cold and necessary, but alive in vain.

It's universal, I have realised,

the art of wanting to be omnipresent,

the painful constricting of the heart that withers away with the dawning of the impossibility of it all,

And yet alive with the streak of rebellion that refuses to be trampled.

In Kabul,

but incapable,

I feel numb —

with lava in my veins.

………

By Sudeshna Chandra