Friday, February 01, 2008

Lakshmi

I'm looking at how beautiful you are,
but you don't even realize it.
You don't realize I'm watching you
and you don't realize how beautiful you are.
Maybe when you are at home
in the safe depths of your bathroom
you are suddenly reminded
that you are beautiful,
and it makes you smile back at the mirror.

But you forget two minutes later
but you are not sad.
You are very happy not being beautiful.
The world is still home.

I want to let down your hair,
put eyeliner and lipstick on you
and dress you in a lovely gown
(everything else is lovely, only you are beautiful)
worthy of a movie star
and kiss you on the forehead.

But that would defile you.
It is in your unmade face
and that t-shirt and jeans
whence you exude your glory,
untouched
by the world.

Maybe you know.
But you wouldn't bury your face in bioengineering textbooks like you are right now
if you did.
If you always remembered your beauty,
the world to you
would be an endless array of cleared tabletops for you to dance on
as men worshipped you, Lakshmi
and as women looked on in an innocent jealousy
and longed
to be like you.

I want to cradle you in my arms like a child
and beg you
to never forget that you are beautiful,
not when you leave the bathroom,
and not when you read your big scary books.

And like your mother
I pray that everyone who sees you
knows as I know
that you are a dancing beauty.

It is you that needs to be told what you are.
You, the one who is not hiding behind a mask
of chemicals and dyes.
You have earned worship.

It would terrify both you and I
for me to get up and tell you right now
how much you shine.
Or maybe I would be the only one terrified.
Maybe you would shyly and humbly welcome my admiration
and glow and smile all day long.

It is my own shame stopping me.
For this, I will have to live
with all of my life
the misery
of not bowing in the presence of Lakshmi.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

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12:10 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you very much, Saggie :)

12:23 PM

 

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