Unmask Me

By Nirmala Pillai

Time leaves footprints on my body,
Wrinkles my skin, greys my hair.
Makes me tell a lie with Dyes and Botox;
But my neck and fingers refuse to lie: 
Lying still, won’t cooperate with me,
Whisper the ageing lie, the mirror is a referee.
Every time I face my reflection,
It only stares back,
A nirvana-detached yogi,
Doing its duty.
Every time I face the glass -- 
Silvered true with oxides,
I fall into despair: 
The mirror only makes it worse.

Beauty lies in the eyes
Of the beholder;
Naked truth lies, in my image.
The dead truth lies,
On the crinkled parchments
Of my neck and hands.
The veins like old banyan roots,
Strangle the fleshless bones.
Muscles are only memories --
Of a shape I used to be.
No scalpel changes me.
No pills, No creams, No chants:
Only muffler, stoles and gloves.
To play hide and seek.
Some sad emojis left to laugh,
With me, with me. 

Nirmala Pillai is a writer, painter, and an Ex-Civil Service Officer, who has published three collections of poems and one of short stories. Her published works have appeared in PEN, The Asian Age, Indian Literature, Bare Root review from Minnesota University, Poetry Can, UK [Poetry Southwest], The Telegraph, The Little Magazine, Cha; An Asian literary journal.

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