WHO'S WATCHING?

Someone is always watching.

Who’s Watching?

 

I see you stepping down from the bed in the morning after getting no sleep at all the entire night. Half opened eyes blood shot, shorts half sliding down, tangled hair, puffy bags under your eyes. You push the hair away from your face, angrily, breaking a few strands in the process. This is no fairy tale in which you wake up with a happy sigh and hands outstretched, after the first gentle ray of sun streaming in through your bedroom window tickles you. This is real life.  The sun’s rays are harsh. And you are angry. Always.

 

You brush your teeth with so much pressure that your gums bleed. You bang your door shut when you come back after taking a bath. In a hurry, you open your wardrobe and put on the first clothes you see, hurting yourself on that nail that protrudes out of the shelf. You pick up everything you need for the day and get ready to leave.

 

“Don’t forget to bang the door on your way out,” I whisper, “It is all that makes me sure that deep inside you are still you.” The banging doors do not upset me. It is the fact that, that is all you have as a vent.

 

You go about your daily activities with the same red eyes, smiling and laughing. I do not really understand how much of it is true. But then, maybe it will just sadden me. So I do not make any attempts to find out. I do not want to see the duck paddling like mad under the water. It swimming calmly on the surface, trying to hide the reality is bad enough for me.

 

You stand with your friends knowing fully well you are so alone in that moment. It does not seem like you are listening to them. You have this distant look on your face and I know that you are crumbling up inside. Your thoughts have overpowered you. Yet, you make sure you laugh and smile when you are expected to.  Is that so you don’t invite any questions? Is it really necessary? To what end exactly, I wonder.

 

I see you trying to convince yourself that you know where you are going and that you are sure about the path of thorns you are treading on. You may know where you are standing
 but the truth is, you are so lost. You are just walking on, chains pulling you somewhere you have no idea about. Expectations, Desires, Ambition, Competition, Taunts, Fear forming the strongest links of these unbreakable chains. I wish for them to fall off so you can be free but the chains are all that is holding you straight up at the moment.    

 

Your mind is a swirling chaos. Everything you see, hear and think about, you add to this tornado of yours, just making it worse with each addition. You hold onto everything so tight that you end up losing it all. In case you do manage to sleep some night, it is these very things that come back to haunt you. The scars. I see you looking at them for hours. Feeling them. Reliving how they got there in the first place. Why would you do that to yourself? In your nightmares, you actually experience all of them again, worse than it really was. Is that why you stopped sleeping altogether? Is this fear strong enough to drive away everything you need as a physical being?

 

Disguise has become your second name. You disguise each emotion, each word and each feeling. You are too egoistic to let anyone you know care. You are too proud to let anyone know that you are hurt. You are too emotionally deranged to let anyone show that they care. Guilt chews you up from inside but you do not do anything about it because you know that there is no way to reverse the past. You do not believe in forgiveness. Neither can you forgive nor do you accept forgiveness from anyone else. Maybe its because you understand that an apology and forgiveness can never change how a person feels about certain things that occurred in the past. Yes, the frequency of thinking about it may decrease but the way it hits you and brings a fresh wave of tears each time never will change.

 

I see you blowing off people who compliment you because you have a hard time believing them. You have a hard time believing everything and anything anyone says and you do not really make an effort to hide that fact, even when you know you are hurting the other person. Your words, once released, rip through the other person’s insides and yet you keep going on and on like a girl on fire setting everything in her path on fire too. Not even the pain in their eyes can melt the frozen insides. Your frozen insides, this time.

 

When I shine, I try to throw off some light onto your eyes trying to lighten them somehow. The light claws at your eyes, but you wont let it shine. Stubborn that you are. Your tunnel like eyes absorb it all.  Eyes that do not even have the ability to shed tears anymore, they are so exhausted. They may shed a tear or two when you feel no one is watching. But someone always is. I am constantly watching. Because watching is all that I can do.

 

What happened to being the most fearless person in the room? Had you not commended yourself on that? I want to be bold Like Hercules you would tell your mother as a child of five.

Maybe it is a phase and supposedly ‘this too shall pass’. But I do not want people’s words tugging at the corners of your lips trying to pull them up into a smile. I want it to come naturally. I want you to not to be afraid and trust at least someone. I want you to sleep at night knowing that you are safe and nothing can harm you. Not again.

 

But what I really want is for you to come up to me in that little white frock of yours as you did when you were a kid and ask me as you always did what seems to be ages ago, knowing the answer all along,

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, Who is the bravest of them all?”

And as usual, I would truthfully reply,

“You, my Queen. It will always be you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

Author's Note

Please do read. I appreciate criticism.

Reviews

[PANDORA]

Clever, clever, girl! I did not expect the ending. So full of emotion but a little to much description. I used to do the same thing and it just took time and effort to realize not every little thing needs to be described. I pulled out the following to change but as always this is just a suggestion.

"Half opened eyes blood shot, shorts half sliding down, tangled hair, puffy bags under your eyes. You push the hair away from your face, angrily, breaking a few strands in the process."

maybe

Half opened blood shot eyes, shorts sliding down, puffy eyes and tangled hair you push angrily away from your face.

Hope this helps. Thanks for the read.

[Samaira]

Thank you. I'll work on it.

[Jyoti_Ablaze]

What a splendid work! Enjoyed to the core. I know its a story, but throughout the read I felt poetry in your words. Its really a great piece. There were many lines that I liked so much as to read it again and again. Can't qoute them here or else I will end up writing more than half of your words.
Brilliantly penned. And the end was the talisman.
Kudos!

[Samaira]

Thanks Jyoti. Keep reading.

[Divya]

This is a product of good and keen observation which is actually very good for a writer but little long.

[Samaira]

Thank you for reading, Divya.

[piper]

Hi Mannat, I really like this, you have done a great job with you characterization. You pull the reader along in this swirl of chaos, that is what makes a story interesting. You hook the reader with what you don't say and make them want to know more, what happened to this girl we wonder, and you made me care about her, and feel her pain! Nice work

[Samaira]

Thanks alot Piper! My main objective when I write something is always to make people feel what the character is feeling. Sometimes I feel that because of that I tend to overexplain the emotions. Thanks alot.

[Marie]

This is very interesting. But you need to shorten it some. The last paragraph has lost its emphasis by the time the reader reaches it.

[Samaira]

I will take care of that from next time for sure. Thank you so much. Wish you the very best.