Comicstrips and Peotry Writing

The ten year old girl
Used to hide in the ancient attic
Where sunlight used to filter in
Through the single glass tile on the roof
Creating a square patch of slanted light.

Bending in the strip of filtered light
She used to devour volumes of comic strips
Mandrake the Magician and Phantom, the ghost who walks
Passed through her universe of absolute solitude
Undisturbed by screams and shouts from the world below
Where relatives arrived as hordes of judgmental comments
Where her mother’s endless demands
Were finally reduced to her being shown off for a single moment before them
And then withdrawn with embarrassed laughter
But, the cruel looks would by then judge her to be deviant
Some of them even squeezed in one or two disparaging comments.

At thirty five
She came home again.
To confront her tired parents
And still-thriving relatives.

Like before, she still escapes through words...

Numb

First came sorrow
In uncontrollable gushes of tears
Which soaked her lonely pillows.

When she realized
That tears were worthless
Not even worthy of a second glance or a forgeteful hug
They stopped.

Then came anger...
It burst out like a long sleeping volcano
Jolting her with its violence and force
After the flames and the lava drained out
Destroying whole nations in its wake
The embers settled and the ashes covered the floors...

Then came numb silence
Which she had seen, feared and avoided
In both sorrow and anger...
It finally came...