MANNEQUIN.

By Shruti Bhattacharya

Tabloids of polaroid picture

lie on the buckets of barber shop,

and yet all I see is a burnt plastic hair

strand in my hand; a pair of scissors

and some bleach-stained fingers,

I calculate and style.

I might be spacing out too hard

or the music is too heavy in my ears,

but my eyes fix at the bubblegum hair

I wear all the time, as if I was born in barbie and unicorn land.

I complain too often to my neighbor,

too often and too certain, and yet all I realize

that certain, futile expressions of frustrations,

is all the world know about, me.

I do not wish to mention my name here

neither do I wish to say where I live.

So let me speak you a story of a fictional.

Let me tell you something true

yet very distant to what I live with.

Let there be a story of mine

where I choose my own name,

and be the main character.

There would be colors in it

and everything I dream of;

a perfect fantasy;

something similar to my hair,

and I really will dream

of a romanticized struggle,

where I am no ordinary human

neither I am Cinderella.

You may call me a pessimist but,

I rather call myself a passive critic of life,

Fuming, angry, and the benevolent cliché

Peek in; poke out; flesh is the same.

And what my existence and truth

in front of my mirror represents

is of those broad-way mannequins,

who look like humans,

but have artificial hair,

color faded and cheap like cigarettes.

Thus, my truth is a living dummy,

at a salon, dressed like barbie;

with pockets empty;

and face bohemian as a hipster,

I stare at the mirrors around me,

trying to identify the reflection.

It is indeed me, and what I have made myself into.

But I am plastic, and probably

I am a doll manufactured by some company,

living a human life due to miracle

By Shruti Bhattacharya