Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Bleeding Angel


With a truck load of things and more to add on her list, the pauper she idolizes. The life, the simplicity, the banquet she can make with the same utensil-the only one lying around, the peasant's daughter is worth all her admiration. From the city's gate, away from the glittering luminous strings waddling from concrete homes-the grave of the living dead... her eyes looms into the distant hollow that separates her from the faint light from the country side at the distance. Can't decide whether to hide or run, she stays. The little pot of boiling gruel tempts her far more than a buffet from the king. The soul burning faster than firewood, she boils over. She has every reason to be jealous of the peasant's daughter. Now, at the city gates, she sees the richness in poverty and poverty in richness and with tear-soaked cheeks like a tattered beggar by the roadside she stands. Far away from everything that seems meaningless, worthless and pointless, her eyes scan every mortal walking through the gates with dreams in their eyes. Measuring their dreams, she revisits her own and more ruthlessly naked she feels. Just a walk away, at the distance, her place-where her heart belongs-awaits her like a waiting mother for her prodigal child with open hands; yet she trembles to take that first step. The clanking of those old vessels hoisted atop a simple burning pyre of wood as it reaches a point of completion, like the drum roll to signal the end overbearingly hustles at the back of her head. She is no more in control of her thoughts and she sways like a serpent in pain now. She twitches and arches as the weight of her "possessions" behind the city gates overwhelms her as her soul moves like a drifting cloud-forward to where she belongs. An unknown stranger in her new-found land, a pain creeps in from somewhere as she moans in understanding that she is a stranger in her own land too. With nowhere to go, she melts... just another bleeding angel at the city gates.     

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Poignant ~

Fredjeev said...

@Ghazala: Reflections are better when the mirror is still and calm