My body has bathed with unsolicited
mockery that pushes me to look at myself
in the mirror. There are times when I
have told myself, “Hey, you are not perfect”,
because that’s how people tend to
make us feel with a not-a-perfect-body
for the Instagram glam fam. I was told
that my body is as light as a balloon
that would fly high when the strong
wind will fail to buck me from moving.
Yes, that’s when the hatred for my body
began.
“That waist is too girlish,” men have
thrown knives on my skin and watched
me bleed through a cemented smile
when they sigh with, “We are just
kidding”. I watched myself being cogent
of the comments that stick in my throat
and don’t let me breathe. Is that what
you mean by “being kind” on your social
media handles? Because this is not
kindness, this rages war for someone
within his own temple while killing the
god in it.
I run through the dating apps where
people slosh my hopes with, “Only into
muscular guys”. I quit the apps and cry
myself to sleep with questions in my
head, “What is the definition of perfect?”
I try to eat as much as possible,
but it is never enough for the world.
Schools have painted insecurities onto
the youth by normalising slut shaming,
body shaming those who are
sitting in a queue for a therapist today.
I sat in a group that vilified my
choices in front of the teachers who
never tried to rectify them.
For once, I wanted to feel my body
without any tags of “too thin”
“too cadaverous”, “too girly”.
How long can you hold this visible
body shaming and ignore it like an
invisible ghost around you?
The hidden demons inside me are
feeding on the excoriated opinions
of a world which never gives a damn
about how that one comment, one mocking statement
can brush away all the confidence
from someone. I am a skeleton
with no flesh but a caged version
of myself who yowls to free himself from
the demons of dubious confidence.
The treacherous world who meddle
with people’s life leave nothing but
a lifelong trauma and grow the hidden
hatred in themselves. Is this how the
real world looks like?
My body is a temple without a god
where the hidden ghost breathes
to destroy the parts of the tomb.
My body is nothing but rage, an
anger, where my palms cut through
the mirror of the definition this world
has of ‘perfection’.
Tell me – where do I put this anger?
Harshit Jalan is a 21-year-old journalism student who writes poems and articles on queerness and social issues. Jalan’s genre runs around queer representation and feminism.
Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty