Watched

 A friend shared a picture today,

a picture oh him, staring, 

wide eyed, 

staring straight through

the photographer and the lens, 

staring through the studio's walls, 

staring at that 

matrix like chunk of space-time,

its boundaries defined

by the walls, 

and by the dictat, 

of a dictating times! 

Staring, 

as if, into a vacuum, 

at an empty space within, 

a void, 

a political void, 

that eats away a part of you,

the moment you realize

you are being watched!

A void that is supposed to

reduce us to spineless beings, 

beings with a void in their souls,

an emptiness to be filled 

with charred remains of

flesh dissolving into doubt,

and bones melting into fear! 

And that is what he captions the photo as, 

'watching, when being watched', 

and instantly I could relate, 

for it's a picture that looks to me, 

more like a painting, 

like a political landscape of our times! 

and in his words, 

the picture is only apt

to go in along with his doctoral thesis, 

being submitted to a varsity, 

he no longer recognizes 

for what it used to be; 

a picture speaking of 

his ambivilance and cynicism 

towards academia, 

given the times.

Well, makes sense to me! 

and makes sense then,

that the average man 

walking on the street, 

bearing that grim look of resignation, 

who used to look tired, 

now looks tired and watched, 

and the average woman

looks worried and watched, 

and the children, 

sad and hopeless and watched!