À l’heure du tout à l’image et du buzz sans suite, «l’express» souhaite faire découvrir la plume de poètes, de chanteurs, d’écrivains et de tous ceux qui jettent leur âme sur le papier, et qui mettent en mots des réflexions profondes.

She gasped. Having to look in the mirror everyday with that same distasteful look and reflection looking right back at her, protruding her soul viciously that has crippled her soul from the inside out. She has to fake the same picture-perfect smile each time she steps out of her cocoon that safeguards from the violent judgement of her own people. Her own mother looks at her with disappointment in her beautiful dark brown eyes. Suggesting to her that perhaps, this time she is really crossing the line.

Crossing the line between generational acceptance and ignorance to fully embrace her fully liberated self– free from this world of boxed behaviour and recurrent adage of hatred and agony. The agonising pain of having to hide your blooming self into an ignorant being whose roots are entrenched in the most grounded soil of normalised bigotry- exchanged like precious history from one to another. Ignorance is bliss but so blissful it is to wrap around her mouth a cloth made from the fabric of - stop being who you are- be what we want you to be…

Ever since she turned 8– she knew she is not what her family wants to be– she will never be the perfect son, nor will she follow her father’s footsteps to be an abusive and hallowed man. The mirror is her biggest enemy, besides obviously her mother’s daily prayers, her holy book, her own accepted belief which tells her every day that her paranoia is just a phase and that she needs to pray hard enough for the Lord to enlighten her with the glimpse of truth. But the truth is, what we learn and what was written has somehow got lost in the translation. The translation of one’s soul towards the higher being. Being born in the wrong body is not a gift and neither is it a curse. Being born in the wrong body generates the long-lasting fight within one’s own self. A fight which takes every bit of your soul, your smile and sometimes your precious ability to reciprocate love. Her heart has been deprived countless times that her father’s eyes remind her that each man who looks at her, will never love her hard enough but will surely want her enough.

Her youth has been spent in the circle of sexualisation and the fetish of being a desired object… She longs to see in that mirror the girl who wanted dark long hair and the red dress her mother bought from the market on a Sunday morning. She no longer sees the girl who believed that one day she will walk down the aisle with the man she loves but lord knows we cannot bless the marriage of those who are crucified before even they speak their truth. Her mirror is her biggest strength and her biggest enemy. The mirror has seen her strip naked, mutilating each part of her body but also seen her making the most unforgettable love to her body.

She is nothing without her mirror and the mirror is nothing without her. They carry each other’s deepest secrets, cries, love, pain, wounds…

Her mirror will speak her truth even though it has been cracked – she can still see her reflection…

Bio

Muzammil Gooljar

At 22, this law student from Pailles is also a writer.