Teenage Bathroom Stalls

“No, doc, she doesn’t have a diary

To padre, she won’t confess,

No clue as to why she’s so bleary,

I’m starting to fear she’s depressed.”

 

I say, look no further than the bathroom stalls

Vandalised by teen girls in high schools,

Portmanteaued names and hearts and curses,

Fuck-offs and go to hell, you fools.

 

The commode’s there to relieve the body

But the walls are where they relieve their minds,

The stall-door is the entrance to their hearts,

Penned, pencilled, white-fluid lined.

 

Darker than diaries and confessional stands

The bathroom stall harbours their blemishes,

Both toxic thoughts and cries for help,

Forbidden fantasies, fears and fetishes.

 

Forbidden fantasies, fears and fetishes,

Aryan Sharma’s her latest crush,

Though Hrithik will always be her first love

He still turns her brain to mush.

 

Hashtag girl love, philosophizes another

Underneath the heart-enclosed Manya Sen,

A closet lesbian coming out to the world

Hidden behind a scribbled curtain.

 

Nisha is sweet, but Nita’s a bitch

She stole her Chemistry notebook,

So she put chilli in her water, your very own daughter,

You gotta teach a lesson to a crook.

 

I don’t have friends, will you be one?

A lonely soul transcribes

Here’s my name, and here’s my class

(But under that, someone’s rude ‘get a life.’)

 

I walk into the class like everybody hates me,

I think I’m pathetic but give fake smiles,

But I can’t keep it up; I’m tired of this shit

Tired of this sucky little life.

 

Nobody gets me, I suck at everything

I’m not what you want me to be,

Then the bathroom stall, it prods me on,

It says ‘Die, you worthless little flea.’

 

I have pimples, I’m fat, and I look hideous

Still, strange men touch my ass

But who I want doesn’t even look at me,

Why the fuck is life so crass?

 

I failed in Maths, I’ll fail in life,

And that’s why I want to end it

So far down that nobody can save me, she writes

And no I don’t want your motivational shit.

 

And then an upstanding student complains to the teacher,

She gets the bathroom stall cleaned-

He came, he saw, he wiped,

The secretless stall gleamed.

 

The student, the sweeper, not even the teacher

Gave the forbidden words a second glance,

And neither did she as she dangled from the ceiling

Performing her areal ballet dance.

 

And then there was her, who lived but didn’t

Consumed by the demons inside,

They pitied her, full of empty words

Sorrow festered, her soul succumbed, and died.

 

The bathroom stall is helpless, you’re not,

So answer to her cries

Don’t wipe it away like the blind sweeper.

See the shards- just open your fucking eyes.