alien

One sum­mer morn­ing, many years ago, I woke up in a strange land and re­al­ized, life, as I knew it, was nev­er go­ing to be the same. But I was used to change and knew, along with fear came hope and an open can­vas to paint my life the way I want­ed to. Like many oth­ers, I dove in to the un­known, got lost, and fi­nal­ly when I came up for air, I re­al­ized, I was an alien.

I did not rec­og­nize the peo­ple around me any­more. Their lan­guage sound­ed for­eign and it was dif­fi­cult to de­ci­pher what they were try­ing to con­vey. It oc­curred to me I was liv­ing in some strange land these past years where I was ex­pect­ed to do things a cer­tain way that made me dif­fer­ent from who I was re­al­ly meant to be. I pulled my veil fur­ther down, hid my soul and trot­ted that path till some­thing deep down forced me to swim hard­er to reach the shore. When I fi­nal­ly did, things made more sense to me and me alone. I had strayed from those who still had not seen land; to them I was glar­ing down from above the sur­face, a face full of teeth, a heart full of joy and new­found free­dom. I was fi­nal­ly able to breathe and the air was fresh.

What I did not an­tic­i­pate were the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that came with choos­ing to be an alien. It urged me to dive down into the dark­ness, to be ex­is­tent in a world I was fa­mil­iar with, to tread the path I was pro­grammed to take and to con­tin­ue to be­lieve that I had to change for the greater good. I fight these urges dai­ly, it is hard work and they leave their marks. But fight it I will. I will no longer look at my­self cov­ered in grime that the world be­low now leaves on my skin. I will no longer un­der­stand those who I left be­hind, who will­ing­ly live hid­den be­hind those veils in a world they have craft­ed with their ugly lies. The veil now re­sem­bles iron bars, rusty and old. I look into their eyes and feel noth­ing but an empti­ness that I fought so hard to forego. The rich­es that I once craved for could only af­ford to buy them shack­les that bind them in cap­tiv­i­ty. They live be­low, shroud­ed in se­cre­cy, un­der those murky wa­ters, eyes hid­den be­hind the filth, for they are afraid, just like I was, to be an alien.

I am an alien with wings. I fly. I soar.
I am an alien with claws. I run. I roar.
I look up and down and all around.
My mouth tries not to make a sound.
For if it does, out will come,
The shame­less and ig­no­rant things you’ve done.

I am an alien who lives with suns and stars.
Who has built a home that is ours.
A home so pure, so full of love,
Bathed in light, strewn with doves,
But­ter­flies and lady bugs.

A home that will con­tin­ue to rise,
Like the alien with no reprise
I am an alien who knows how to fight,
But also knows love at first sight.

I know this is for­eign to you, my friend.
Some­thing you will nev­er com­pre­hend.
I hope one day you are able to swim,
To leap, to fly, to soar from with­in.
Be­cause only then, will you tru­ly know
What it means to see your life aglow.

—mala paul

Flom­mist Mala Paul is a pro­tégé of the god­dess of ten hands. Form to form­less all in a day’s job. A moth­er, de­sign­er, dancer, food­ie, fash­ion­ista, blog­ger, who is al­ways ready to be the change. Copy­right © 2015 Mala Paul. All rights re­served.

MOR D’ARTÍCULOS  MOR FLOMM !

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