The Truth Unveiled

By Akshika Singh

She left like a whirlwind,

Running without a pursuer.

Dust flew in her wake,

Of memories discarded.

What was she running from, they wondered;

Or what she was running towards;

But like silence after a disaster,

Their questions were made to cease.

But how long could curiosity be stifled?

Questions resurrected through bleeding lips;

And trapped in the fibres of time,

They became addicted to tragedy.

The stories spun fast,

Flammable hopes for them all.

Being blinded by the sparks,

Was perhaps their only escape.

Walking on ice that melted beneath their steps,

They drowned in their fantasies.

Surviving this catastrophe

By freezing themselves in time.

They were haunted by their denial

Of unsolved mysteries;

Haunted by their thoughts

Of what could have been.

Perhaps they were misguided,

When they sought to reclaim her.

Perhaps they couldn’t bear

The pains of aloofness.

They knew about ignorant paradise;

But it couldn’t pull them past the pain.

The same pain she held onto,

To find the light within.

Perhaps her heart was fragile,

Perhaps her mind, unfocused.

New plans, new beginnings,

Now painted her murals.

Like sidewalk art she existed,

In their half-remembered dreams.

Like figments of watercolour,

They painted a story for their peace.

Mimicking the frantic outburst

Wrought by her desertion;

They rode guilt flooded euphoria,

Lived an idyllic image.

They called me a hoax

When I first moved in.

Recited stories of being jinxed

To deter me from living there.

Perhaps if I had heeded them,

I never would have known;

Why she ran with no harbour

For her oceanic mind.

Perhaps if I had heeded them,

They never would have thought

To hold me behind bars,

To hide the rumours, they flared.

Like clockwork glitches, so did they,

They relented to my desires,

Reopening the stories

Of wounds they had inflicted.

They told me of their buried anger

That they unleashed upon her.

Of hourless days, of hope and regret;

Of waiting for forgiveness.

And in this naked light I found

The silent answers to cryptic myths;

She left to escape rumours and lies,

Left to find her true self.

Her destination was unknown,

But she kept going;

Guided by the compass in her heart,

Hunting f0r her elusive self.

She was in the wrong town;

Where rumours fly swift,

Swifter than ashes in wind,

So, she never said goodbye.

Perhaps there is nothing left of her

Except the dwindling road she took.

Or perhaps there is more to her

Than the faded letters I write.

But if I’m being honest,

They never tried to search

Beyond their confined hope,

Frantic as they were.

And if I’m being honest,

She was better off alone;

And though her name shall not be known,

Her story shall still be heard.

There are things that I’ll never know,

But for now, I am content;

For the truth finally unveiled,

Has closure if not an end.

By Akshika Singh