Find peace within yourself...

Each morning, I wish for my legs, which are too thin for my body to have found powers from the dreams I reluctantly abandoned. I wanted the muscles of my legs to not stagger as I found courage in the gulps of cool dusk air. Courage to face the weak image in the mirror. I can’t tell if the reflection is pretty or not, because I’m too busy judging every fragment of my picture separately. Lashes are too dark, lips too thin, scars too deep, teeth too big, hair too messy and fingers too long. I stared until I felt dizzy, then looked away and never turned back.

I cross paths with a significant number of people throughout the day and sometimes I stop to wonder, if somebody, anybody, has gone through what I did? Forcing the salad down my throat I’d glance at women enjoying their slice of chocolate ganache cake, I imagine if they ask themselves and their perfect bodies: Are you here forever?

On the subway, I would see someone skidding his or her skateboard over the gravel, I imagine him or her asking his or her bruises, how long will you pain? I watched the girl on the swing laugh uncontrollably, and I imagine her asking her lips, will you never uncurl? I read about people running away to hope, and I imagine them asking their feet, will you remember the way back home?

I have waged a war against and within me. The rush of blood in my veins have forgotten calm, and it was constantly trying to run faster than itself. Often, it is too hard to decide if my body is a battleground or the destruction caused, because I could feel each cell crumbling? Was it the end of universe inside, or the beginning of life? All this only adds to my confusion, only making me realise that whatever was needed was a halt. A few more sleepless nights, and I knew that this halt had a name — peace. People told me, I couldn’t make peace with others, so I made peace with myself.

— The reader is an Indian student based in Sharjah