Insane

By Garvita Singh

So, I look at her once again.

The girl over there, brooding most likely.

Seemingly lost, slightly pretty,

I smile at her, she smiles back instantly.

A soothing smile, I think.

A reassuring one, yet formal and supervised.

Something suppressed underneath,

like a sudden urge to frown, but disguised.

I frown, she imitates immediately.

I let out a sigh and she copies me again.

She's alone, I'm surrounded.

I could afford to be a droplet, she was a hurricane.

I glance around cautiously.

Am I a lunatic? For making faces this way…

“You are not mistaken”,

the girl seemed to agree with everything I say.

“Do you know me?” I say.

“Do You know me?” I heard her ask.

She resembled me,

almost like me, but without a mask.

“What's that?” I shriek,

and point my finger at her forehead.

A label is stuck.

I blink and squint, 'Insane' it said.

I gasp and take a step back.

Terrified, I turn, prepared to go.

Unable to walk, I fall.

Amid the crowd I sleep, swift and slow.

I wake up in cinder blocks.

The girl is sitting in the pale wall.

I tell her to leave me.

I’m helpless, she's steady and tall.

“Insane, why?”

“Don't you know it?”, she bitterly whispers.

I gulp down water,

she develops sweaty whiskers.

“I'm here to help”, she offers,

“help you and me get out of this place”

I barely know her, how would I?

But something was very appealing to her face.

She lets her hair loose,

a few black strands frame her cheekbones.

And then, she strips.

Absurd. Now she speaks in a heavy tone.

'Look at me' I stare, I obey.

Nose to toes- my eyes follow a skinny path.

Instead of skin, she's inked,

like in letters she'd drowned or took a word bath.

'Petty''Moody' 'Emotional'

I make out some words in the bodily jumble.

'Anxious' 'Artistic''Vulnerable'

“Do you relate?” she seemed to mumble

'Weird' 'Awkward' 'Self-absorbed'

'I guess she's just mentally sick'

'Attention hogger'and'A loner'

'Calls herself a little eccentric.'

I stop reciting. It hits me.

Strikes me a sense of familiarity.

The girl disappears, and a nurse

carrying some boards, gives me a look of pity.

“Wait, stop”, I plead.

She ceases her walk for a moment to look.

“What is that that you take away?”

“You hallucinate in every mirror”. I shook.

A mirror, oh!

The girl I saw was me, I am the girl.

She was the real me,

I am not who I am to this wide world.

Thank you insanity.

I was a stranger to myself, damn!

What a messy human being,

if they saw me for who I am.

By Garvita Singh