Portrait after portrait I capture
Of every nook and crevice
A tapestry etched into my skin.
Lady of Autumn, Summer, Winter, Spring.
Through my blurry front camera
The shutters flash.
Looking past what I work so hard to portray.
Glass-like. Transparent.
The discomfort claws at me again.
Hate pooling into my chest.
Unflinching, I gently rock myself.
‘Give it time’, I say.
A dimple here, a handful there.
Wrinkle and jiggle and bulge.
Ingrained in me, a sense of shame.
Time has since helped me unlearn.
Warzone once, now a refuge. My body
And I are friends. Slowly, I breathe.
Peace engulfs me. The shutters snap.
– Isolation and I.
A lot of people did a lot of stuff during quarantine. Some lazed around, some learnt a skill, some were perpetually busy working from home, so on and so forth. Me? I took pictures. From every angle, in every light. Makeup, clothes, props. With and Without.
Picture after Picture after Picture.
For someone who struggles to have a healthy relationship with her body, these pictures have helped me view myself from a different prism. A less critical, more appreciative prism. This poem is a reflection of that very experience.
Footnotes :-
Check out @girlsofisolation
Check out https://ridinkskinned.com/post/155866710789/writing-prompt-s-your-wife-c… her-hair-color to understand Para 1, Line 4.
By Reha Malik, for the Trans Solidarity Fundraiser