Poisoned Apples

I have been climbing the stairs for long,
White stairs and a fairly brown me,
We make our haggard movements gay,
A few but hard per day.


Calibrated insects follow up in the air,
Head sways to a rather kaleidoscopic dance,
Body stays behind...
A few red flowers and black leaves,
Black, black derailed from the ground.

The Snow White in me? barely cares for sleep
But would the short humans be able to hold me steep?
Would we all fall down fast?
A clump of weak sad humans
There there...
Inked as the old patriarch conjures up a fairy tale.

You sashay into the deep south end,
gown rather lost , to the morbid bend
Some would dare say -
Had you eaten your vegetables and protein
You would stay a stable scarecrow in the wind,
somewhere angling tens up on the fairy tale.

Anorexic ants crouch on the sugar
brooding antennas low,at a downward vigour
Few of them have already lost their appetite
The others hoard, just beyond the expiry fate
Nearby,
You try and sanitize the poisoned apples bobbed at you,
Daadi ke nuskhe kaam na aye,
Snow White kya Beauty bhi bhooki reh jaye.

White stairs and a pale brown me,
Make our way through religious chants
"Kyun kuch khati nahi?
Isko kuch khilathi kyun nahi?"
She's gonna be somebody's brood mare,
Implicit meaning thrown up like dirt
Haye Haye..


Flashbacks of a vertigo,
Of a malnourished cultural mandate
You hold on to dear life and move on
Still walk up and up
Trying to be the lovely brown you.
In all proportions everyday.