Monday Midnight

My left hand was holding the comb

And my right-hand fingers were running through 

The thin wavy hair strands – running parallel to my cheek.

Cheek with teeny flesh plateaus painted in skin colour.

I turned my neck towards the left to have a better look at it. 

'Dandruff is the culprit', I whispered under my breath. 

I took the comb in my right hand and starting combing gently. The shamrock coloured comb had not been cleaned for months. It was filled with dirtballs along its teeth.

I took a brief look at it and decided to clean it the next day but I knew I would not. 

I procrastinate. A lot.

I made a middle partition in my hair and realized how elongated my face seems. 

I haven't gone for any haircut since November 2018 but the hair strands did not grow considerably. 

Slow growth. 

I love long hair – that is why I always pull the hair strands to console myself that the strands have grown longer than

the last time I checked on these.

Leave alone fast, at the least, they are growing.

I pulled the hair strands held in my left hand and it touched my breasts. 

Breasts having blush marks – marks of confinement, marks of imprisonment. I forced an ill-fitting bra on my tender breasts.

The tangerine bra straps on my skin felt like a distorted art to me – as if someone has painted me using the setting colors of the sun, without my permission.

I caressed them anyway and thought to myself that I have always been fond of them but I never really took care of them – They have been groped, touched, pinched and what not.

Over the years, I have come to love my breasts. 

Accept them - with the hidden fears and frustrations,

With visible vulnerabilities and valor.

Love them as they are – they represented survival.

The rectangular mirror smiled a wry smile, staring at her own reflection in the tarnished reality.

I stood numb and stared blankly at myself in the mirror, not recognizing myself anymore, wanting to get to the roots of My anxiety and restlessness and 

Comfort it all the way up, kissing myself at places 

Devoid of Love.