Image

I know you have an image of me

In your head, that I am this way or that way. 

Let me tell you, keep it with you

I don't care what you think

Of me as long as 

You don't brandish it in front of me 

And pretend that you know me 

Better than I know myself. 

I am a fool according to you

"Falling" in love all the time, 

You think I even fall in love with 

Random lamp posts on the street. 

I am coward, according to you

Becuase you think I never 

Muster up the courage to do things 

Which are branded brave. 

I am a disappointment, according to you

Because I failed to confine within your norms.
Your image apparently depends on my image,
I say that's bad!

You take it for granted to yell at me
That I need to do "self evaluation",
Delve deep into my soul and search for it,
And make me look like a psycho
If I stand up against a wrong thing
You said or did.
Yeah it's your image of me.
What should be my image of you?

You think I am a damsel in distress
Needing to be saved
So you take it for granted that I need you!
And jump at every occassion
To "save" me!
Thank you, but no thank you.

And I am an angry woman,
According to you,
With no insight or farsight,
Incapable of thinking about consequences.
You think I am about to explode
The next moment with anger
When all I am doing is keeping calm.

You see my photo on social media
And comment, "this is not the person we knew",
"What has happened to you?"
"Where has that old you gone?"
As if you knew me very well.
All I can say is, a haircut is not the standard
Of determining whether a person
Is the same or not.
Transitioning from salwar to jeans to
Palazzo too is not.

So you take it upon yourself
To judge me and tell me
Who I am and who I should be!
And even tell me who I was in the past!
When I think, "well this is news".
And wonder if you are taking out
Your insecurities on me.
Because, your image of me might be
That I am a door mat,
Ready to take dust off your mind!

I am amused by what you think,
And what you feel about me.
You think you know me fully
That my life is an open book.
Well the truth is you don't.
Neither do I about you.
Your life is yours,
My life is mine.

So it will be better if you kept
Your image of me with yourself
Stopped pretending that you knew
Me inside out.

When you haven't seen my life
Through my perspective,
Experienced things as me,
How can you claim you know me
Better than I know me?

You are deciding things for me
And trying to impose attributes on me.
The question is, don't you have anything
Better to do in life?
May be you are worried about your own image.
You worry about yours, but don't try to tell me
And impose your beliefs upon me.

You see the problem with an image is,
That if one starts to live for it,
Did everything they did just for it,
Everything would become a mess and
Life will become a hollow process.
You could become untrue to yourself.
No. Don't put others' image of you in front of you
When you really want to find yourself.
The world calling you a "genius" does not make you one,
The world calling you "a loser" does not make you one.
So just don't go around giving attributes to people
Claiming that you know them better.

When you make an image of someone in you mind,
Just remember, images work both ways.
Like I could also have formed
An image of you in my mind,
That you are an mcp or a creep
Untrustworthy, cruel or cunning,
Or just a person obsessed with your own image,
The list can go on.

So don't bother about who or what I am.
Keep your image of mine with you
And live your life
And I will live mine.