Impressions

She wears today Not the violet of the myriad flowers that colour meadows Nor the indigo of eclectic dyes, the ilk of colonial conquests Nor the blue that reflects from the ocean, vestiges of light  that cannot be absorbed. She wears today Not the green of algae that grows on decaying, stagnant water Nor the yellow of the pus that pulsates in a purulent wound Nor the orange of the astringent antiseptic that flows through hospitals Nor the red of the fresh warm blood that oozes from a raw laceration. She wears today The white of the brittle skeleton Formed bit by bit from ossified deposits of memory Stubborn bones that shape her flesh. She wears today The skeleton that hides in her closet.

“Feelings are enigmatic creatures”, my father used to say. “They are an amalgamation of the visceral and the intellectual, glorious in our inability to comprehend them. The moment we think we might have unravelled a bit of the mystery, another strand shows up and throws all our understanding into a disarray. We may be defined in flesh by finite lines, but within us there lies a gaping infinity. Infinite cells, infinite thoughts, infinite feelings ... think … think about that, sweet heart. Think of the unfathomable depths of various criss-crossing thoughts as mysterious and ancient as the universe that we carry within us. And herein lies the human conundrum, a deeper awareness of this infinity makes us aware of how little we know about ourselves. What we see and what we know is only the tip of the iceberg … and it is very easy to drown in the ocean that hosts the iceberg.” My father did eventually drown in the   cerulean   ocean of his thoughts. I was eighteen. He left a...