Written by Isha Vashista
Edited by Jaanvi Thorat
Illustrated by Sanjana Mathur
You become your own worst enemy when insecurities rise up. The thoughts of self-doubt and confusion take over every sensory element of the human body, and shoot down the confidence you built over a period of time, in a matter of seconds. And as those insecurities rise up, you hear a voice in your head that feeds you stories and justifications that become your only truth, tainted by that one second you thought too long. Finally, when all subsides and you get time to reflect, you realize the voice in your head was no other than you yourself.
In this poem, the palace of sand imagery has been used to refer to the positive side of thoughts while the waves denote the cascade of negative thoughts that arise when one overthinks.
The Broken Palace:
One fell swoop.
A lone wave against a palace of sand
A palace that was made celebrating every effort
reduced to nothing in front of a singular wave.
One fell swoop.
That’s all it took to erase the hours worth of work
To dismiss the planning, to dismiss the ideas
Ones which were made with a cowardly pride.
One fell swoop.
The waves become thoughts
Thoughts of your own creation
Bringing down palaces of your celebration.
One fell swoop.
The spiral that goes downward with each thought
Thoughts that make you question your own reality
Bring you to the ground harder than you can handle.
One fell swoop.
As the thoughts make way for their creator
You recognize the demon, the cause of the waves
You see yourself in front of you, as you overthink everything that has been.
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