Published on 03:10 PM, May 18, 2023

Blue clay

Illustration: Fatima Jahan Ena

The blue model of clay vices

That sits in a house of glass

Will shrink about three sizes

As it waits for the moon to pass.

 

With her hair moulded perfectly,

and her eyes shaped to cry,

Her blue clay turns to burgundy

As darkness drains the sky.

 

She sits in the clear palace –

Picture perfect in her place,

Unaware of the mould and its malice

Inching into her embrace.

 

Like promises made in secrecy,

It tells her sweet, green lies

While spreading through her sheepishly

Like poison does to flies.

 

She's frozen in her state of being

A model built to die

With smooth skin that is for pleasing

But a heart built to deny.

 

So, the mould extends its ugly tendrils

Of deceit that it will preach.

While she stays set on her lovely end trail

Where she's never meant to reach

 

So doomed the blue clay princess

Her skin now turns grey

Too lost to even witness

The crime that was at play.

 

Her hand perched atop her side,

Her head turned to the sky,

She looks to darkness to confide

But the moon passes her by.

 

Her eyes frozen in memory

And skin broken in plea

She begs, but not for mercy

But only for her fee.

 

The one she'd earned for holding

The impossible serenity

That had the glass house going

While she lost her sanity.

 

But alas the mould is rigid

As it crawls into her ears

While she stands still and she listens

She sheds not one stray tear.

 

And while her colour slowly fades

And her blue clay turns to dark stone

No part of her is jaded

And no part of her, her own.

Syeda Erum Noor is dangerously oblivious and has no sense of time. Send help at erum.noor1998@gmail.com