Survivor
Dr. Shalini Yadav
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Al-Jouf University, Skaka
Saudi Arabia.
I realize every so often
Diaspora within myself
Where the displacement occurs
Two spheres; two identities
I keep on crossing the borders of each
As what I am supposed to be sometimes
Or what I am exactly
My identity disperses
From one periphery to another
Sensitized estrangement
Distancing hostility
Which I often experience
And resist with great efforts
Within and in exterior
Adjustment of two identities
Which try to surmount one another
I shuttle between both
Which are two different shelves of me
As opposite to each other
Sometimes conflict;
Attempt to overlap
I am occupied by both
Keep on shifting
When I enter in one’s margin
The other continues to haunt me
As one is traditional and customary
Another is enlightened and contemporary
They combat and fight back
And try to change them
From hyphenated
To un-hyphenated identity
I face an ever changing uncertainty
This makes me an outsider
Occasionally deep inside me
The sense of impermanence
Makes me a diasporic within
And I exist between two opposite poles
It requires lots of strength and vigour
To suffer the trauma
To adjust myself
Between the pull and push of two selves
Furthermore I try to assimilate them
I apply the strategy of negotiation
And carry on with hyphenated identity
To be a competent survivor