This piece is about people like me, who get scared easily, who have low self-confidence and sometimes wish to be considered strong and flammable.

I rise with smokes of denials
practiced over and over to not

                                               to bend with piercing stares
                                             and heavy voices that pin me

to the wall of fragility to melt
me down in a molten lava that

                                             can me made to condone and
                                              can be confined within walls

that scream to me in days too
short and nights too long with

                                             broken sentences that intend
                                          to break me too with the belief

that I don’t belong to anyone or
anywhere and that I’ll succumb

                                             one day to my scars that now
                                            seem irreparable for they still

press against my throat when
I try to curve my lips around all

                                       the defiance I was taught before
                                       I was spilled out unwillingly but

what they often forget about is,
the volcano I erupted from.

By Muskaan Bhagat

About Muskaan:
Being a student from Jaipur, she is a reserved person with a genuine interest in discovering people and places. She has performed in various poetry slams like Turquoise Frames and Coloured Ink. Currently in her 16s, she has a goal of publishing her own poetry book some day.

Artwork by Katty Huertas