Epiphany

As you eye her careful stance, envying her balance, her hold on life, you assume things, one over the other about the perfection of her life, herself. You never once guess at the fact that this very girl once pressed a smarting cigarette between her delicate lips, trying to ease the pressure that threatened to strangle her. You don’t assume that she relied on the blissful numbing effects of nicotine to escape the intensity of those failures.

As she walks through, smiling at one and all you assume her as a celebrity, happy and frank with all. Yet, you don’t ever see the never ceasing creases on her forehead, even as she laughs. You don’t notice how she always smiles briefly and is so often lost in thoughts. And you certainly don’t see the slight pain in her eyes that gives you a peek into the hardships of her life.

As she goes around telling people to hold on, to not let go, you don’t see how she reminisces those days when her own hold on reality was so brief that she was almost about to let go. She floats like a free bird yet her reality is a cage in itself, unable to break free.

You don’t observe the tiny tattoo of an anchor she looks to every now and then, drawing and redrawing over it, in an attempt to hold back. She hides the scars and the carcass of those hidden thoughts behind her attire and yet with each passing eternity it threatens to jump back to life and cut away her anchors. 

***

In the confines of her home, with her perfect hair wrapped in an untidy bun atop her head, lose wisps of hair framing her face she closes her eyes against the stinging smoke. There are three cigarette studs in the ash tray and sill half the box to be puffed away, while she waits for the spreading fire to swallow her completely.

-Momina.