To fully appreciate my apprehension
of draping a saree
Imagine an ant
crawling inside a Venus fly trap
willingly.
Imagine a thousand pins
surround your body.
Your shoulders.
Your navel.
Your hip.
Strangling every instinct
Protesting against uncertain pleats
Binding your feet.
To me, dressing in a saree
is like a squirrel
donning the scent of a rattle snake
from shedded reptilian skin.
Hoping to impress friends and kin.
Dissociating from reality:
a smelly, gaudy rodent, ignorant of its own vanity.
Granted many creatures with carnivore-like authority
tolerate, even celebrate (!)
the viles of a saree.
Their pallus do not shadow an uncertain gait.
Their blouses are tailor-made.
Premeditated accessories to accentuate
the mystics of the yards-long garb.
But I am just a worker ant
scurrying on the ground.
Their outfit a mere fantasy to me,
A medieval fashion, ill-thought-out.
The above poem is for the NaPoWriMo2021. Day 2 Prompt: Saree
This is so beautifully written! I loved it 💜
ReplyDeleteThank you! I was super nervous about this one!
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