Self Portrait

I looked into the virtuous mirror,

To paint a portrait of my soul,

A futile attempt to prod the core,

To let the truths and lies to unfold.

I saw myself standing in a field,

Lonesome where dark clouds hover,

And the might Banyan in the middle,

With me under the shadow of dense cover.

Twenty years of lies and hiding,

Twenty years of never fitting in,

My only friend being the wise old tree,

The only one to hear my laugh and shriek.

‘Why so glum? Have you no friends?’ the banyan asked,

I said no and leaned against its mighty trunk,

‘Then, continue to stay with me, little one,’ it said.

And into its shade my dark feelings sunk.

Days churned into years by the mill of time,

I forgot all about the kindness of that wise tree,

That hath sheltered and spoken to me once,

But now it was nowhere to be seen.

One day, I went in search to find him in that place,

To look for the green embodiment of unconditional love,

But all that remained was a barren land of no grace,

Half of a tree and half of a man no more.

I stared at the empty nothingness,

Was this what my portrait showed?

The outline of the parasite that I was,

And couldn’t hold onto the only friend I had.

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