Kanchana Sutharshan

Ms. Sobiera
EWC4U
January 4th 2016

Sutharshan1

CHILDISH

When I was a child, and the smallest prick grazed my skin,

I ran towards my mother.
I knew that her embrace would fix all ills,
she was the one who loved me with the extent of soul.

When I was a child, my father was my shelter;

he would protect me from the apocalyptic weather
that faced a sad world.

The love in my mothers eyes never faltered;

I was her greatest creation;
I was beautiful, and she reminded me with every waking breath.
My father believed that I could reach the corners of the cosmos,
if I lifted my arms and closed my eyes.
I was his greatest commitment.

When I was a child, I survived in the confines of a bubble that had been built
by the naivety of my heart, created by my parents.
This heart made me blind to the concept of human difference, blind to the possibility
that the human psyche is so immensely flawed.

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KINDNESS

My grandma used to tell me as a child,

if you live a life of kindness, you will never live a day of sadness.
But when I began school, I realized that my kind heart could not shield me from
discourteous souls.

I was in 3rd grade when I first pretended to be sick in order to avoid entering the threshold
of the battlefield I called a school, where bullets grazed my skin,
destroying the bubble that my parents had built, the bubble that gave me a distinct kindness, that
made me believe that I was the most amazing creature.

I was so small; I did not understand that not all of those who walk the earth are raised
the same way I was, with the same love.

I was in sixth grade when I realized that the lies I told of the amazing
life I imagined I lived were not a conceptual reality.
I was in seventh grade when I first felt the chill of my bathroom floor;
when I first felt crippling sadness.

I was in elementary school when I learned that the kindest of souls, live a life of hurt.

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AS I GOT OLDER

As I got older, the T.V taught me the definition of beauty was physically unreachable;
there were woman that possessed innate beauty, and I wanted the ability to
walk and talk pretty, but I was stumbling over my feet and my words
were losing their meaning.
I taught myself that my mind could expand over universes,
but all that could make or break me,
was the colour of my eyes, the length of my legs
the perfection of my teeth,
and the colour of my skin.

As I got older, I learned that my parents could not shield me from

the terrors of the concept of beauty.
They poured love and encouragement from every part of their heart,
But I could not move past the way my mind found the exquisiteness and wonder in
everyone, but myself.

As I grew, I was taught my place in society, I was discriminated for being

a girl, discriminated for looking the way I do.
My surroundings were chipping me away, and I was
being inched towards
the grave of those who could not survive the wrath of the definition of beauty.

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SHATTERED
The way I felt about my accomplishments, what I saw in the mirror, and my
past made me develop an cold core.
I was a leaf in fall, lying on the icy pavement attempting to avoid the footfalls
from people destroying my delicate, decaying surface;
attempting to survive until the next cycle;
when the trees would change colour once again.
I took showers for hours, attempting to thaw the ice that had formed around my heart,
drowning in something that was not my thoughts.

High school felt like four years of a consistent storm, rarely seeing moments
when bolts of lightening were not stinging my skin, rarely experiencing moments
of solace away from the overwhelming noise of self-destruction that had surrounded me.

My anxiety-filled nights were fuelled by my subconscious need to be stronger,

smarter and faster than my peers.
Societal pressures weighed me down, and broke my bones,
and I did not even realize their cause; I believed I was damaged goods.
I was no longer the woman my mother believed that I would grow into;
and her eyes looking into mine mirrored those watching a car crash.
The red marks on pieces of paper that I bought home proved to my father that the dreams he had
for me were shattering. I could not even reach the stars,
let alone the corners of the universe.

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CANVAS
See theres a problem with having an ice heart so early in ones existence.
The bottoms of my feet are forever cut and bruised by the rate that I run
from the slightest touch that threatens the walls I have built up around me.
The breaks in my heart used to bleed fiery anger, released in outbursts.
I promised those I loved that I wasnt a bad person, but
I couldnt stop the eyes that bore into me disappointment.
The demons that infested my subconscious threatened any chance
of normalcy in my life.
The people that surrounded me crushed me with their labels.
Pretty, ugly, straight, brown, stupid.
I grew up wanted to be someone I was proud of, but now the flames of the hatred I felt for
myself is catching fire around me; it is
burning every part of me that once held my childhood dreams.
I feared that my mother no longer had the ability to love me with the extent of her soul,
my father proving to me that the persona I had developed, was not of one he wanted to protect.
This world changed the little girl who had a heart of gold, one that was overflowing
with a distinct kindness.
I went from a canvas whose colours were sprawled across in the most beautiful intricate
patterns, to a blank canvas, begging for the smallest drops of colour to seep in
through its cracks, longing to be painted with any sign of life.

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VACANCY
I used to judge people scarcely.
I had an unobstructed, exposed heart, and my love extended to those
who did not have a bit of love in their system.
I did not see the small bits of their personality
concealed to the outside world.
I used to tear forget-me-nots out of the ground,
whispers of do you love me or
not, dancing along my lips.
Now, I feel the flowers I destroyed, wilted like love.
Now, I do not extend my heart quickly I conceal it my chest.
Now, I over obsess over the little details.
The small freckles upon someones right cheek, their nasally laugh.
Their love for the smell of gasoline, the cause
of the white scar extending from the base of their neck.
Why they love their favourite song,
or what makes their heartbeat fast and their eyes light up.
I clutch onto the small details, because now I understand that love is fleeting;
And that I need to keep small pieces of people with me, in order to remember
my mistakes, like believing in someones side smile, and kind heart to quickly.
What caused this loss of belief, or the vacancy in my chest?

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THE DESTRUCTION OF AN ICE HEART

The world, our psyches has been built to break us,
to destroy the innocence that we possess as children.
They give us ice hearts, and the strongest and most willing
find a way past the chill, and storms.
We should not have to fight so many battles, the bullet wounds
that cover our skin should not define the way we are treated.
Labels should not dictate the way I feel looking in the mirror, labels
should not force me down a path of hatred.
Societal expectations should not have made me tear parts of myself in the
hopes to be as pretty as her,
in hopes that I would be half as good as him.
I will build my own world.
Societys ability to make me fear the fading afternoon light, dreading the sleepless
nights and nightmares that will make its way out of the trenches they created
in my mind, will disappear.
As we grow older, we realize that the things we put highest in merit,
the things that dictated how we felt about ourselves, are useless.
But what about the nights I wasted?
What of the irreparable collateral damage that you can never forget, like questioning your
mothers love, or how your father left you out in the storm?

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Reflection
The thematic anthology poems I wrote, titled The Creation of an Ice Heart, explores
general flaws that society possess, its role in shaping the personalities of individuals, and how
societal pressures destroy us as we fight for happiness. The main idea I write of is that we
constantly attempt to meet societys expectations, and lose parts of ourselves along the way.

In the first poem, I describe the innocence and kindness we possess as children, only
having been around the immense love our families direct towards us. In the beginning of our
lives, our parents are the only ones we have, and they work to make you believe that you possess
something extraordinary. As the poems progress, elements such as bullying, self-esteem and the
media show the destruction of a person, and how their mind set changes. In Kindness, I
describe the weight of the opinions of peers on the way that you feel about yourself at a young
age, and that showing kindness to people in this society, cannot guarantee you happiness, even
though it is one of the core values that we are taught. As we suffer hate from peers, the image of
what our parents made us out to be distorts. We slowly begin to believe that we are not as
wondrous as our families portray us.

The theme in the next poem, As I Got Older, is how the media contorts our view of
beauty, and how it destroys our self-esteem as young girls. I have always been fascinated by the
medias ability to destroy the morale of woman, through their misogynistic ads, and the way the
portray beauty on billboards, while simultaneously attempting to spread the message of the
beauty that everyone possesses. So, I based this poem on that concept, and how no matter how
much the everybody is beautiful statement is fed to us, the media has already caused

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irreparable damage. Another key element to societys destruction of people as we grow is their
ability to make us hate our outer appearance, making our personalities and talents irrelevant in
comparison to our looks. In Shattered, I paralleled the concepts I presented in the first poem.
This poem describes someone who has been crushed by the expectations that being in the
modern, western school system entails. The feelings of not being good enough, and not smart
enough is a constant feeling teenagers endure during high school, hoping to survive the four
years. I explore this in the poem, and how school can make students anxious. The next poem,
Canvas, ties all these concepts together, and presents the destruction of a persons personality
attempting to meet societys expectations. I describe how our parents unconditional perception
of us is extraneous to the perception of ourselves. This poem presents an individual who has lost
the war against societal expectations. Furthermore, the poem Vacancy, shows how the love for
others we possess as children fades incredibly fast, as we are exposed to the unkindness in
peoples heart. In the last poem The Destruction of an Ice Heart, I wrote of my personal battle
to fight my way through societys expectations to make a different life for myself, away from
what is expected of me, and what my labels dictate me to be. But, we are wired to care about
what other people think, and societys perception of me is always going to be something that
bothers me.

All in all, the message I was trying to present in The Creation of an Ice Heart, is that
we are all parts in society, we are what make it up. We need to destroy our judgements, and let
people grow and love themselves, without the crushing expectations of society. We are all
extraordinary not a single person better than the other.

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