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A Stranger Who Came to My Town: A Poem by Lalita Vaitheeswaran

Uncanny looks, demeanor eerie and disheveled hair,

He came on a dark winter night from nowhere

Stealthily as a shadowy silhouette he crept in credence

Drenched in conceit, his vanity overflowing in abundance

He sneered at all, and looked down upon his peer

Materialistic belongings were his flaunting flair

His thunderous laughter that was sarcastic and snide

Made everyone pull their tatters on their bare to hide

I enquired him where was his gesture humane?

Why does he lug himself with vices and bane

He roared with a laughter evil, that resounded and echoed

He suddenly then pulled out a mirror and showed

Shockingly I saw it was me, a facsimile of him identical

Appallingly, I had changed into my doppelganger evil

How bitterly I had become a stranger in my own eyes

Worsening from a human to a beast, living a world of lies