Stench | Maalavika Ajayakumar

“Gah!
Enough with your mascara, your lipstick and lashes”
The mirror’s words sat like phlegm on my face
“I can’t stand your stench”
‘Tis true: I can’t stand my stench.
“Enough with your perfumes and powders and dyes
Cause somewhere in your dusty skull
I can still smell your goat
Remember the smell of the cattle shed?
Remember the lice on the bullock’s tail?
Remember …..
You pretend! Pretend to be this urban scum
The female muck of pretensions and sticky makeup.
The free bird in her brother’s soiled cardigan
Once loved watching the centipede curl at her touch
And today, you pretend to cringe from beetles and birds
You don’t fool me , ‘cause I remember
How a decade ago
You stood before me checking for a scar or two
After a playful evening with your village chums
Your short hair wild and your hands all brown
Here, I see your once tanned face now bleached pale
You were always tanned
Kissed by the sun..
Today, you brood over books and papers
Eyeing empty words that make no sense
You copy words of …
With your eye on the rhyme and mind on the money
You eternal waste! You heap of garbage!
I can’t stand your stench
The earthy smell of mud and rain
No longer hold you, no longer there
You stink like burning plastic, you!
I can’t stand your stench”
‘Tis true: I can’t stand my stench

Literature and Authors | Maalavika Ajayakumar writes on Indian Review.