"baby, fight.." mother rhino cried.

So the baby rhino said to her mother,

“mother look! My horn is getting bigger and stronger!

I will wait for the day it will be as magnificent as yours!”

“Yes, my daughter, I hope it will be stronger and finer,

The best of them all”

So she waited and waited,

For her horn to get better,

She and her mother separated.

One day they met, mother's eyes were wet.

Baby rhino gasped, “mother, you're bleeding, where is your horn?!”

Mother cried and with pain in her eyes, said

“Humans are coming, your friends were killed after being poached, merely out of vengeance.

Humans are coming, run, it has hurt me a lot,

These are your mother's last words, my dear,

Run, run far away, and never get caught”.

The baby rhino, now all big, with a magnificent horn of her own,

Lived in fear, fear of losing her horn,

But a greater fear of letting her own daughter see her the way

She saw her mother dehorned and in pain.

She encountered human horn traders, poached,

Her horn fell off with now a bloody mass of brain.

She said the same words to her daughter,

that her mother had said to her.

Saw her daughter panic in fear,

Closed her eyes and slipped a tear.

I don't accept myself, why do you?

You look in the mirror,

You have an image to maintain.

But it is difficult,

Difficult to be someone you are not comfortable being,

Unless you go insane.

You look in the mirror,

You have a good body,

The kind of body that isn't skinny

That isn't beautiful

But it's normal, with an okay stomach

And a nose that isn't runny.

You look in the mirror,

And grimace.

It's not who you want to be,

You want to be healthy, muscular,

STRONG.

Then why are you hiding under that average skin?

You want to accept yourself before

They accept you,

As someone you are not

As someone you don't want to be.

You look in the mirror,

And sob.

They see a fair lady,

You see something they can't,

The oozing black sinful blood seeping from every pore,

The insecurities, jealousy, hopelessness and unhappiness.

How can they love someone you are without knowing the real you?

stabbed

 I thought about stopping everything, ceasing everything to an almighty halt. And I did it. What happened? I realized that everything I do for everyone foes unnoticed and that actually nobody knows what I do. It turns out that I thank them for doing what they do, but never get the same for myself. 

spinning too close then spinning away

Right now, this moment that we are enjoying,
a moment with happiness beyond measure,
and love beyond infinite;
this moment will just fade into a story
in the back of our minds.
When we were having a conversation that was erudite,
and turned it into a joke with giggles that lingered,
we smiled and smiled and promised each other,
that we would stay together.
But that promise is still in the Recycle Bin.
When we chatted away,
and I promised to be by your side forever,
and believed in it for months and months-
then years after, it's a memory as small as a pin.
When we smiled at each other with tear streaked faces,
and firmly said that this would be the last time we
all get into a fight,
but then we fought again
and again
and again
all through morning and night.
When we were on the swing in my park,
and we looked at each,
I knew I was thinking about
how I would wait forever,
even if you would carry around a lot of clout,
even if you would stop talking to me.
But now I laugh at that thought,
and then cry.
How our beloved memories simply fall,
fall,
fall,
and fall,
through the infinitely cloudy voids
of our minds.

The falling never comes to an end,
it's like a circular remote loop.
The memories fall and fall
and some days, we catch a glimpse of them.
But then again, too quick to get a hold
they vanish again -
to continue their unrestrained discoidal journey.

-Nalini