CREATIVE COLLECTIONS
The views, information, or opinions expressed in this essay are solely those of the creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of The Rhizomatic Revolution Review [20130613] or its members.
Did you know Shadows could tell tales?
Sometimes it tells you yours and at other times it feigns silence,
like a reticent spectator taking little notes on life.
I have been on an eternal quest to befriend my shadow,
but this relationship has been a hard one to decipher.
Some days, I’d like to be a shadow to my shadow,
watching over its mellow movements as it appears and disappears.
Other days, I see it as a teller of tales; My tale.
A considerate storyteller
in how it refuses to show the fine lines
that crease my face as I age
and always walks at my pace
even as my feet grow weary.
But I can increasingly see the unevenness of its ways;
This flake of light that somehow weighs on my shoulder
even as it slips through the gaps between my fingers.
As I pick my battles and find my way,
I see in my shadow a reluctant companion,
that no longer walks, but lurks at a distance.
As it engulfs the bits and pieces of my life,
the growing weight of this shadow, almost unbearable,
remains by my side
like the bitter aftertaste of my life.
***
Today, as I sit down to draw the lines of this relationship
I’m reminded of a distant memory,
of a friend who told me,
“I was you and you were me.”
But we aren’t the same, are we?
Only a well-practiced lie, a successful deception.
The shadow in which I sought
the playfulness of the morning light
would rather wrap around me like the miserable gloom of overcast days.
The incongruence of this relationship lay bare
even as I swore we were two parallel planes .
***
As dust gathers on my unmade bed,
a cold desolation settles down, trailing me like an incessant itch
that I refuse to acknowledge.
The desolation makes way to the bottom of my feet
revealing a whirlpool of stories;
Stories that carry my words
and the sourness of my life,
nevertheless, not completely me.
A shadow is a shadow, a sliver of truth,
but never a reflection.
It holds traces of my life, innumerable tales.
Yet, it is not the narrator.
The struggles woven into me
are mine alone,
a life staggeringly threaded together into poetry,
to be interpreted and recited
by me alone.
There are few things as beautiful as
the gradual grasp of a Truth that holds onto
your hand for sheer survival and my Truth was here and now,
to be held and believed.
Caught in the beguiling gaze of my shadow,
I had failed to see the light that cast it.
I mistook my shadow for light itself
when it was merely the absence of light.
My shadow, an intrepid shapeshifter,
which made me see and unsee myself
was powerless without me.
A failed sorcerer who refused to see that
the shape I took was the only one it could ever take.
Creator Statement
Min Yoongi’s “Interlude: Shadow” came into my life as a challenge to confront my own little tales that lay unsettled underneath my feet. Prior to this encounter, my tryst with words had come to a long pause. Moreover, there was a deep discomfort in how I chose not to engage with myself and my own words. “Underneath These Feet” is my effort to prod at those shadow lines that accompany us, almost a companion yet a constant cause of disconcertion, a persistent partner yet infuriatingly intangible.
— Sahar
Writer/researcher of few words found along the Arabian Sea coast (India).
Illustration By: Kanad, @kanadmandke (Instagram)
Suggested Citations
APA Citation
Sahar. (2021). Underneath these feet. The Rhizomatic Revolution Review [20130613], (3). https://ther3journal.com/issue-3/underneath-these-feet.
MLA Citation
Sahar. “Underneath These Feet.” The Rhizomatic Revolution Review [20130613], no. 3, 2021, https://ther3journal.com/issue-3/underneath-these-feet.
Underneath These Feet by Sahar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
@Sahar, 2021