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NOVEMBER 1998 | VOL. 2, NO. 6

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MERIN ELIZABETH KURUVILLA, a 14-year-old from the United Arab Emirates, is a contributing writer.

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Sheltered Life

MERIN ELIZABETH KURUVILLA

The beat's dark and dismal. They've erased all of danger's traces
From a field of unanswered questions. I see the same faces
Yet not knowing what lie behind them,
What could be the thoughts that rove,
Masked by saccharine smiles,
Concealed by the heavy drape of love?
Closed doors wall me into streets of endless night.
Tiresome nights of warmth and not a hope in sight
Of breaking free from safety's dart, from love's sharpened knife,
While trapped in the invisible web of this sheltered life.

From my shell, I see around me, their undesired weeds sprout,
Defeating the real person within me, trying to get out.
Leashed, blind-folded, within this realm,
My world's just one long disguise,
I want to be a part of another world -
That strange world outside.
I don't want my life chalked out by others in a school
Of security and monotony. I want to break the rules.

When they raise shade by shade of love, then I'll forsake youth,
Watch a world of secret passions, a world of hidden truths.
When I know the unknown, when I see the pain and strife,
That's when I'll bid a glad farewell to this sheltered life.

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