Jan 30, 2018 Original Poetry
Being Double
©January 30th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Double consciousness dogs her days
An anthropology museum with native artifacts?
(Ah, but can you detect the suffering behind them?)
A winter street in Harvard Square, full of bright shops?
(Ah, but do you see the homeless stretched out in front?)
A king penguin on YouTube, chasing bubbles in a trance?
(Ah, but what about its homeland of less-than-eternal ice?)
A leaping dog who greets you with joy when you return?
(Ah, but what about its short life compared to yours?)
Shut up, shut up, shut up, she says, to the other within.
The other grows quiet. She wishes to get drunk.
(Ah, but you don’t like alcohol!)
She longs for oblivion, for blind forgetting.
(Ah, but you worry about losing your memory!)
She wishes to be washed away without pain.
(Ah, but you fear drowning most of all!)
Defiant, she reaches for an apple.
I shall eat this now, she says.
I shall immerse myself in the act of eating.
I shall let my tongue and teeth, and throat
Experience all that the apple promises.
And she does. She gazes at the apple.
Such carmine beauty! She bites into it.
Such resistance! Such crispness! Juice!
And pleasure pushes thought away for now.
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