Not An Autobiography

 

A friend asked me once,

WHAT WOULD BE THE TITLE OF THE BOOK WRITTEN ON YOU?

I was caught off-guard; the question hit hard in places I was most sensitive. Glued to the question, helplessly hovering over the immediate answer and trying to justify the answer. The choices of a wisely stupid child scrolled and began piercing and left me utterly mute.

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School had just whistled the last bell. It started raining. Long had it been since I was alone with the rain, sky, and puddles, all at once. Following the lead of the English teacher, everyone started to leave. In mere minutes the class was left alone. Ensured they had left me to myself, I slid out my diary. Ears stuck outside, fearful of unforeseen visits, forthwith I started writing whatever came to my mind,

 

This, that every drop of rain,

please make me pure, take away the pain,

 

If I am blinded by hate, I can't see anymore,

please flood my home at once, take me ashore,

 

tick tock ticking, I am a time bomb,

ugly to all and all, yet ugly to none,

 

rain of today, making puddles on the road,

with whom I shall walk, scribing another episode,

 

episodes of hopes, episodes of dreams,

of the grown me of tomorrow, beautiful it seems,

 

tomorrow when I will write my own book

my ugly yesterday exists, for behind, I will look

 

they who see me for who I am and my nows

they will know the past, will know the hows

 

when the title they see shakes up their vision,

I will surprise them, not my book I shall mention,

 

I re-read the poem, corrected some forms, rhymed some words, and tore the page. I left the class with the torn page in my pocket. A forgotten umbrella was smiling outside. Hands behind the back, beneath the bag, a journey began. Puddles, rains all as anticipated. And the proof of my aspiring loneliness surrounding me and mine. All leg to leg, shouldering one another, started to walk alone.

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The question "WHAT WOULD BE THE TITLE OF THE BOOK WRITTEN ON YOU?" took me to the poem's title, "A prologue; My book". Holding myself through the windows of today onto the meadows of yesterday. Yesterday, when I demanded loneliness. Today, upon this permafrost I stand upon, lost and all lost, I saw how negligible apathy I had for my past. How run-down from disbelief I had become. A warm hug to my yesterday, I mourned for. Two negatives, me now, me yesterday, superimposed into positivity for the future. That day, through aching emotions, I concluded, I must stand afloat; I stand afloat and optimistic. When my life proves to be aspirational, I shall have a book on me entitled "Ugly-Not an autobiography." Two negatives aligning to be positive.