You refrain from looking again

Choosing to admire the beauty of her smile

For you know that if you do

You’ll have to travel back for miles.

And that is too much work, isn’t it?

Too much effort and a lot of distance,

And you’ll have to carve your way in

Through all her walls of resistance.

Your nails might break with digging out

All the filth and all the sorrow,

And touching her might snatch away from you

All your hopes and dreams for the morrow.

You wouldn’t want to hear her ranting

Of how she got bruised the way she did,

How she danced her way out of dread,

And built palaces in places they forbid.

You wouldn’t want to hear her out

For to people who do, she has questions to ask,

So you admire her plasterd but lovely smile

Instead of pulling off the painfully stuck mask.

-Dhanya Nair