Eyes Don't Lie

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I can tell a million things from somebody’s eyes

Many don’t believe it

But believe it.

Eyes have a story to tell

A powerful narrative

A subtle, implied tale

If only you are keen to notice it.

Eyes can cry

Without crying

You see it on the faces of

Workers on minimum wage

Trying to hold back well-concealed emotions

Or you can see it on an orphan

Or the face of a widowed woman

Disinherited by the structures of patriarchy

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Eyes of a child

Those innocent balls of joy

That grab your sight

Those eyes which inquire

Those eyes which ask

“Mom, did I have to sleep hungry again?”

Eyes which love

Eyes which stare right into your heart

Unpretentious eyes

Eyes of a lover

Shy, those dim-lit eyes

Eyes which stare into the space

Dreamy; distant

Like the disappearing cow-bells

Heard from afar

Eyes which don’t look intelligent

Eyes succumbed to the emotions

Eyes sagging under the pressure of love

Eyes of a liar

Eyes which don’t rest

Eyes ducking from one falsehood to another

Like the feet of a wizard on a witchcraft spree

Eyes which betray the trust

Eyes which don’t speak to the heart

In eyes I can tell your past

I can stare into it

Gaze at it, look at the pupils

In your eye-brows I can tell a story

In the demeanour of your eye-lashes

I can tell your spirit

It will be a window

To peep into your heart

The eyes of a witness

Can unlock a death mystery;

The eyes of a slain victim—

Have you seen them?—

They have that pleading look

As if to urge upon killers

To spare them;

The eyes of a condemned man

They are dark, ghostly

Dim-lit, resigned to their fate;

The eyes of a conman—

Have you also seen them?—

They are like dangling ropes

On the roof-beams of a cobweb

Somehow they don’t rest;

The eyes of a paedophile

They too have a story to tell

They are half-truthful, half-lying

If you look at them hard-enough

They boomerang to rebellion

Never be caught in its pretence;

The eyes of a serial killer

The most calm, the most devious

They are moist with love

Teetering on the edges of mock-love

All you will ask yourself

“Did he really kill all those people?”

I once remember the eyes of a madman I saw

So calm, so staid

They could have been the eyes of any other

In them I saw reason,

In them I saw no confusion

In them I saw no demented mind

Until he murmured his abracadabra

I also saw the bushy eye-brows

Balls of eyes that scared me

But three conversations later

It turns out that he was the best soul to have known!

Eyes can be so deceiving!

After all, all that jitters is not bold!

Then there are those eyes of a hunger-stricken

Eyelashes dusty, pupils devoid of life,

Eyebrows scattered as if to symbolize their grim state

These eyes don’t cry

For to cry is to expend on water

And to expend on water is something their bodies

Wouldn’t want to risk doing

But such kinds of eyes make me sick

I want eyes that bubble with life

I want eyes that laugh at my heart

I want eyes that look me straight in the eyes

But have you been in the streets

And saw those squinted eyes,

Distrusting, as if you were a bouncing time-bomb?

Whatever happened to those warm, disarming eyes?

Well, it is a changed world

In the past, eyes met eyes, pupils met pupils

But nowadays you are intruding!

We have politicised eyes!

Some pair of eyes will see fingers in the public coffers

Other pair of eyes will ignore them

The rest will wonder which pair of eyes saw

The right thing!

Eyes have a story to tell

A powerful narrative

A subtle, implied tale

If only you are keen to notice it.

Next time you see a live butterfly smashed on a wall

Say so

Don’t say it was a painting!

Eyes don’t lie.