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Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall
I look in the mirror Hoping to find myself Somewhere in those eyes Hoping to understand. I find no answers there. Did I expect the answers to appear out of nowhere, Suddenly held in my hand Or written in the lines of my face? I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I looked too long, My eyes playing tricks on me, But I saw myself change, Become something frightening and strange. My eyes swallowed by yawning pools of darkness, My lips twisted in a sick grimace, Horrifying and mesmerizing all at once, My inner demons made manifest – my doppelganger. I tore my gaze away But I could still feel her watching. Pressure
Can you feel the pressure? The pounding of your heart As it hammers frantically against your chest, The painful intake of your breath As the walls close in, Clear glass, ever shrinking. Boxed in like a mime, But there’s no escape… Frantic scrambling of limbs and thoughts As claustrophobia rises up like the bile in your throat, Unintelligible screams drowned out by the grating and grinding Of the moving walls along the floor. Compressed between the walls, Trying, unsuccessfully, to push them apart, Expending all your remaining energy To try to stop them moving ever closer As time and air run out, Calling desperately for someone to save you. Gia BidaniGia is currently a student at Oxford Brookes University in the UK, pursuing an MSc in Human Resource Management. She was born in New Delhi and has been living in Singapore for the last decade. Poetry is a passion of hers and she is majorly influenced by the work of Sylvia Plath. She can be reached at [email protected]
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Overload
You’re pushing too many buttons, Making too many lights flash On and off, so bright they leave sunspots, Like too many responses To unwanted stimuli. You’re pulling on my last nerve. These nuts and bolts work tirelessly To keep going, to keep up, But the confusion is causing a meltdown, This machine is breaking down, Leaking a soup of thoughts and feelings Like oil, seeping through the cracks, Collecting in a puddle of mud-like goo At my feet, emitting a ‘gloop’ every second As the steam escaping the motor blows past it Like the tears that run down my face. The goo bubbles over with rage as the temperature rises, As the pressure increases. You’re causing too much damage! Stop! Please, stop... Before I’m broken beyond repair. Insomnia
Lying still in the silence, I can hear the blood pounding in every vein, Throbbing in my head. Anxiety forces the hand behind the drum To beat ever faster, ever harder, Cracking a whip upon the back of that slave. Sleep is made impossible. My mind wanders as though it were Set free among the stars in the vacuum of space… Where limitless possibilities Stretch out in front of me And my mind wants to follow several paths at once. The very stars mock me, Twinkling with amusement at hidden secrets As I look up at them. The more I think, About life, love, purpose, size, significance, The more I feel like The concepts slither deftly out of my grasp, Leaving me feeling that if I continue to ponder, I’ll lose my mind in the vast depths of the universe. |
