This Stiffling Coat

The existential crisis, rudderless feeling one gets as one’s not sure what this body is, what’s to do with this and essentially how to map the world with this, or indeed whether to at all….. In the end one plays his/her part and vanishes but world exhumes the dead for post-truth – buries and burns it again. None is spared from this post-truth. Gods, Goddesses, great men and women are all queued up and exhumed for this ritual. What then one wonders what’s to do with this stiffling coat which one may never be sure is himself …

Stuffed in this fleeting fleeing coat,
The full sleeve, this high collar,
The thick leather, this stiffling overall,
All buttoned up and locked out,
Just enough vent to see, listen, eat, breath and act.

Ones thrust in as if in a play, unwilling,
Nobody asks what one’s to wear,
Thrust out on stage, ill prepared,
Out into the glare, the light, heat and stare,
Ill at ease, I want to change , run away, quit.
I didn’t sign up…..No, no, no……
But this button won’t give, this zip too..

I try , I try and I play along to prompts,
Teach myself to like this stuffling coat ,
Watch others playing on, I teach others too,
Overcoats of many hues I wear o’er this,
Many many attires, but this coat ever sticks,
Sticks, sticks and I forget it. I Like it, I love it.
Few stitches loose but looks like mine forever.

Yet, some people like it, some hug it,
But many loathe it or shoo it away,
Strange, strange as I myself just learned,
To like it, to love it and even consider it me.

Why can’t they learn to like it just like me ?
But alas I don’t know why hate thrives.
It’s so deep they’d burn or bury this coat,
When it’s worn out and hung up to dry.