I dedicate this to you Firebolt and Embers, towards whom I do not have to pretend.
I pretend all the time,
I act, I build a pantomime,
I laugh, I care,
I love, I dare...
Each hour, each day,
I try that I may-
be to this world,
what it expects of me.
Yet, it is nothing more than a bribe,
to which by my own I subscribe.
Yes, it's my own doing,
yes, I've been all along knowing;
that a day shall come...
When I shall deceive none,
for so tired will my soul be..
It'll break into a 1000 pieces of me.
Only then shall I truly know,
how many will remain and
how many more forgo.
How many pairs of hands,
by my side will stand,
to render me into a whole again..
To shoulder my pieces
& be with me through my winters & rain
Till then I shall be a faithful mirror.
Showing 'them' all they want,
without any possible error!
-23rd Jan. 2011.
So yeah! that's me to the rest of the world who doesn't know the true me...I pretend to be an obedient loving daughter to my parents ( I do truly love them, then again I'm angry they don't realise that there are needs beyond just providing for your children )
I pretend to be a well behaved girl to the rest of my family so that my parents are respected in the family circles!
It's only with my younger cousins that I share my true life philosophies, not the gay ones ofcourse..
I pretend to be a good colleague. Always ready to be made fun of, like a jester to my acquaintances and office colleagues and most college friends, so they're cool with me. (half the times the jokes they crack are so lame, so I take that very topic to another untangible direction & am rewarded with loud guffaws, especially from my friend Smile)
So yeah, that's me in real life, I can put on an act pretty easy, actually that's what I am doing most of my living breathing lifetime!
It has become second nature to me. The very moment that I am with anyone other than myself, it's like a switch is turned on or off as per the social setup surrounding me! Actually thing was that I feared that the second nature was getting over capricious and that's why I gave my true self a chance before it was murdered completely & no one would even come to know! What a weird idea, but you know what?
It is true!
Nice one!!
ReplyDeleteThanx, Anjum..
ReplyDeleteInteresting. This poem makes me think of that conversation my friend and I were having about Freudian concepts of ego, superego and id. Doesn't really correlate but...
ReplyDeleteEveryone pretends. It's a fact. If not all the time, then some of the time at least. How much of "ourselves" is visible to the rest of the world? I don't know that but it's probably not much.
The kind of pretense that you have been under is detrimental. Of course, I do not know exactly what situation you are dealing with, but I suggest that you look for a way to fix it. It doesn't have to be very difficult, really. All it took me was a phone call to my parents. But you gotta know that in the end everything will be alright. :)
"One's real life is often the life that one does not lead"
ReplyDelete- Oscar Wilde (happens to be queer! but that apart, he is in my all time fav list of authors)
Yes, everyone does pretend sometime in their lives to keep people around them happy, or for other varied reasons.
With me it's just that I haven't really evolved, as in when people ask me why don't you like this or why do you not go out with him he is such a nice guy..!
I have no answers, not that it's their fault, but, I've given up the false pretences now, I hope they take the hints.
I didn't know Freud interests you, he has entertained as well as informed me immensely.
Psychology was one of my subjects for more than three schooling years at college.
If I hadn't pursued journalism, I would have been a psychologist!
Here's something that might interest you, it's a letter from Freud(his own handwriting too!) to a disgruntled mother, asking Freud to cure her son of his homosexuality-
http://www.truthtree.com/freud.shtml
This is very true. You have correctly expressed everything that a person goes through when they are pretending, be it for any reason, for you its your gay side(the real you!) that you hide.
ReplyDelete@Amber: what do you do to hide?
ReplyDelete