by Samanwita Sen

Is it insanity
To gaze at your own reflection
And be met – only –
With growing vacancy?

To trace the corporeality
of your own hands
Yet feel as if your cells have dissipated
Dissolved – Frayed – Scattered –
Into the humdrum, the frenzy of absurdity?

What happened?
Your imprisoned gaze pines.
What happened
To the world where the colours swirled
And every untouched crevice
Whispered of sweet, splendid wonders?

When you felt yourself
Whisked away by the whirring winds –
Marvelling at the innocence of stardust –
The force of wanderlust –
The kaleidoscope dancing on a painter’s canvas –
The untraced silhouette of a stranger’s unspoken promise –
Wavering by the flickering glow of lamplight –
On a frosty winter midnight?

What happened
To the worn out hands –
You never again caressed.
To the crackling nostalgia of a lover’s voice –
You forever abandoned.

You are contorting, conforming, stagnating,
Fading into the cacophony,
Trying to be
Something you cannot be
In the chaos of a world that tells you how you should be –
Watching the time slipping through your hands
Like silk you never had.

Now the only colour you know
is your depthless shadow
Clawing for light.
Now the only rhythm you know
Is the ceaseless buzz of a phone screen
And its static, eerie gleam.

Which reflection is real?
The one you can just make out
Begging to be let out from your mother’s time-worn eyes?
Or the one staring blankly back at you
From the abyss of a screen?

Is it insanity
To believe that there is so much more?
Is it insanity
To believe there is still good in the world?
Is it insanity
To believe the only sanity Is insanity?