I AM

 Babies are soft and velvety

Tender, fragile and silky

Rose leaf softness as such

invites a finger's touch 

But

when you live with them

and dearly love them

You feel

Softness is going inward

Round cheeked flesh

wobbly as custard

The boneless splay

of the tiny hands

Admiring them whole day

Joints are melted rubber

Cuteness they spread

even when they slobber

And 

when you kiss them hard

as an evidence

of loving their existence

Your lips sink down

And 

Seem to never find bone

Holding them against you

They melt and mould, too

As though any instant

They will flow into 

your body again

But from the very beginning

Each child carries

a streak of steel within

And that very thing

says, " I am"

And that's where

It all begins

In the second year

Bones get harder

Child stands upright

Skull grows solid and wide

Like a helmet

protecting the softness within

And " I am" grows too

And that's the very origin

Looking at them

You can almost see 

Like a heartwood, so sturdy

Through the translucent flesh

You can see the glowing flash

Facial bones emerge at six

At seven, soul gets fixed

Process of encapsulation

Reaches its elevation

In the glossy shell of adolescence

Where we loose our essence

Now all the softness is invisible

under the nacreous layers

of personalities, that are multiple

We develop many faces

To safeguard us from messes

In the next years

Hardening spreads from center

As one finds and fixes

Facets of the soul, the childish

Until "I am" is set

Detailed and delicate

As an insect in amber

As a butterfly in colour

© Priya Jain