Jaachi Writes

POEM 192: TALKING SHADOW *raucous flute interlude* Hand in hand we're standing, my shadow and I. Side by side, we're staring, at the nightly ball of light. My shadow sighs and whispers 'Tell me how it feels,  to look me in the eyes, and see another man' My shoulder drops like rainfall, rolling off the roof, eyes met, shadow's and mine, my soul removed. God! I saw another man! *eerie flute heightens* My heels becomes wheels, I run me to my home, stands before my mirror and blinks ten times in a row. And lo, right in the mirror standing hands akimbo, was another man, my shadow, he wears a smile I know. 'Tell me how it feels' says shadow mirror man, 'to look me in the eyes, and instead of yourself, you see another man' I'm scared but you're smiling, although we look alike, I don't know what you're doing, but shadow, you're not mine. 'I'm the man you'll soon become, if that path you thread along.' Instantly it dawned o...

If the entire world's a stage, then it's nice to be able to recognize the other actors. "God has given you one face and you made yourself another”, Hamlet says to Ophelia. There are two sides to us all: The person we are and the person we pretend to be - This is confusing enough – We spend most of our lives examining people’s faces, working out whether we can trust them or not, and whether they are the thing they say they are. It becomes even more confusing when they turn up one day wearing someone else’s face. Who do we want to tell our stories?  Who can we entrust our secrets? We want people who are honest and truthful. But we all have the emperor’s new clothes. Except that this time, no one is saying the emperor looks great in his amazingly royal purple. Neither are they saying that the emperor looks naked, or even ridiculous. Everyone is simply saying that the emperor looks like another person entirely. And that, regardless of how this change has happened, is a whole o...