By Diana Sushmitha
Battling through life’s constant struggles,
The pain and trauma it leaves behind,
Hindering not the family’s “bond”,
I feel a funeral in my brain.
As dawn breaks, the “door” of a place wide open into a space,
Mother, startled, wakes to see the miseries set afresh before her;
Scared, she wakes her daughter;
through the open door, a silent battlefield is all they see.
Holding mamma’s hand I try to face the world around us,
Why alone I wonder?
Men brag, crave authority, yet are unseen in this “womenly” trap.
Struck with idealistic notions left unfulfilled,
Life, like a royally crumpled paper waits to be scribbled upon.
Why then does Mother need her Husband?
Merely to wait in silence to be objectified or
Be pushed to accept the life of torture that awaits her?
Everything remains a secret, silenced by men.
A hidden “noise” thumps my heart,
Perplexed, I fight our battle,
Not to prove to men,
But merely with no choice left.
Detached from her homeland, trusting, aspiring, depending,
Mother walked into a “heaven”.
Least did she know it was hell amidst a “heavenly” abode.
Yet she strived, failing forever and
Bore her “wound – less” state.
Hopes lost, she lived for her children.
Worthless she felt,
What else could a poor woman do?
Nobody knew her struggles, her silent fear nor her pain
All she could do was yield to fate and fight her battles “still”.
Unraveling challenges did not seem difficult anymore,
With the ebb and flow of time any situation seems challengeable.
But it is the mind that plays tricks of loneliness and anxiety,
Leaving us completely bewildered.
Relationships strike a war with the mind and emotions.
merely silencing my outside world.
The mind works without ceasing, my real world seems completely ceased.
Can the mind be held without fear or the head held high?
Oh! It makes me wonder if I could ever capture that sight!
Josephite Literary Review 