Neglected Questions and Answers

By Ananya Gupta

I can perhaps never tell them

How somewhere down the unmemorable memory lane,

A life-loving, ordinary kid became a pain.

How she became this bad-mouthing trash bag,

Grew up this quick,

Lost the trait of being jovial,

Mastered the art of lying and escaping.

How she drifts into dreams and a world of her own with eyes wide open.

How she stopped waiting for days meant to celebrate and savour,

Became this gloomy, patronizing, mentally and physically ill

Disdained-person.

How she was nagged incessantly, panned and judged,

For each step she took,

How she looked,

What she liked

And what she disliked.

How a close someone killed gradually the kid in and out of her.

How she was made stoic, vile, scorn-worthy and other hateful adjectives she was bestowed upon.

How she became this whiny, cranky, irritable, unworthy thingamajig.

How she ceased to like and love.

How she killed her juvenile self,

And became this unhappy, aloof individual and a failure in her conscience.

By Ananya Gupta