Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets but this week’s artist is from India.
Sriven Srilakshmi calls herself a beginner writer. She has a bachelor’s degree in engineering and said she writes when her heart feels heavy. Srilakshmi said her work is stressful and literature and art calms her. Srilakshmi wrote a poem that was inspired by discrimination that she faced. Here’s what she said about this experience.
“Discrimination seeps in stealthily like a snake, spreading its venomous poison in our hearts. It’s like the sigh we see on someone’s face after they ask us to dress up for a fancy dinner. It gets apparent after the “is this the best you can do?” I faced colour discrimination too. I have realized that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder itself.”
Srilakshmi also has a WordPress blog. Her poem is called “Skin.”
SKIN
Bare yourself uncovered? It is a free world.
Yet entrapped in your own skin. This cover, what if it peels off, we scrape off?
Would it be different? Would we have different colours? Have Colours of our own?
This skin, is a cover alright, Layers and layers beneath it, lies you.
The you, you know and not just the cover.
A shield that you cannot see for yourself but are obliged to see from another.
The other who sees it as not you.
The other who sees it as not beautiful.
The other who sees not beneath the cover.
How would they know you?
How would they know to see beyond the layer?
