My Gaslit Chamber | Vasudha Padmanabhan

Ensnared by three knots

Abused and what not

Paraded as a slave

In submission I lay

Self-respect you flayed

Doubt corrodes my flesh

Mad, I should be deemed

Great it all seemed

Longed for a kind embrace

Only an iron hand remains

Demanding implicit obedience

Fuelled by subservience

Wreathed with

Lies, nuanced and decorated

Broken promises boundless

At a loss of words to say

I should walk out some day

When I tried leaving

You threatened to kill yourself

You used our child as a pawn

You fell to the ground

Hands on your chest

Was I too naïve to realise

I am part of this sick game?

Why do I do this again?

Because I have so much at stake

Knitting layers

of treacherous nightmare

Spinning cobwebs

of psychological warfare

Your meticulous art beats a matryoshka doll

Deceiving strokes converge like a kaleidoscope

No one believes me

The world thinks you are a saint

Every time you fight

You dupe me with sleight

Yet again I succumb

And let you entrap me

Loser I am

For believing you will change

This shameful person I have become

Makes me feel loathsome

I have lost my identity, rendered mute

Hoping one day I would be understood

You did make my life colourful

With bruises, beatings, black and blue

My daily constant being crimson hue

It adorns me generously

Paints me with disgust

For I too, was once loved

As you brew whirlpools of despair,

I plunge deeper into this hellish affair

I am trapped in a cage

To which I hold the key

I beg my malfunctional mind

To set me free