Sisyphus toils, I brush my teeth
A poem about the myth of sisyphus and the repetitiveness of everyday life.
Every morning I wake up ,
a white foam forms inside the slimy lacunae of my cheeks
The toothbrush whirls around
Next I watch Sisyphus toil,
I must carry his burden too.
Among different hills we push the boulders up ,
heaving and panting till the stars come up .
Their vastness explodes against my vision,
Only rum and a gentle arm beneath my breasts could calm my awe.
A new man, everyday, must whisper my beauty into my ears.
Mirrors lie when I walk past,
so do womens’ eyes ;
brimming with contempt.
My roommate screams at a cockroach with wings,
squatting between cemented walls he cannot comprehend.
brown antlers of the arthropod range ,
twitch at the loudest of noises
He climbs up the tiny crack in the wall,
moist with perspiring moss invading a tiled human place.
A plastic slipper flies, he lies flailing underneath.
Sisyphus sighs and rolls his boulder again,
his crown now jeweled
with drops of sweat
blockading starlight.
I roll upwards ,
toward another white foamy day against my cheeks.
And downwards again
to a warm bed with a cold companion
Neither of our naked bodies entangled
Staring at the stars Sisyphus could not touch
~Chandrima Dey
SY BSc. Economics