I rose aloft and on my feet,
No warm no cool nothing to feel,
No hurt no pain it was all lost,
As I wore this new limpid hoody.
I saw my family crying and mourning over my body,
But tears didn't cascade out of my eyes,
I walked out into the street as I could not take it anymore,
When I saw the children in a park making an uproar.
But again I could not smile.
I saw people covered in warm robes,
To not be at mercy to the chilling cold,
But while I stayed in my clothes so old,
Nothing but void was all that I carried and wore.
The cars plied up and down the streets,
The people walked with their faces in glee,
The child nodding his acquiescence to his mother's saying,
The same old beggar on the footpath laying.
The world was untouched and unchanged,
Life was same for all sacred or profane,
But I could not feel the warmth of love or the cool of hate,
As I wandered astray.
As I lurked like those shadows in a horror book,
A child dashed past me and I turned to look,
He stopped and shivered as if he had walked through snow,
But then moved on for he didn't understood.
I roamed and roamed and a little thought,
How insignificant had I been in my past?
Job and home and home and job,
What else had I done apart from the throng?
It was too late to change anything,
As a pang of regret struck me,
Had I played a better role, a role significant and different,
On this metaphorical stage of the world.
I walked to the graveyard and to the freshest grave,
Engraved on marble was the personality I had carried throughout my life,
"Worked hard all her life, for her family, with all her might",
Only if I had lived some of my life for myself,
I wouldn't have rebuked myself and died that night.
As I sat there beside my grave, a movie played before my eyes,
Seeing the three year old me, I smiled,
She was going to school excited,
As she bid her parents goodbye.
A smart, young girl walked out holding a trophie,
Hugged and embraced by her parents and walked home,
Her friends called on to her for a party,
But her books pulled at her robes.
A graduate walked out, holding her degree,
Offers for jobs piled up, and she searched for the best one,
They told her of startups, told her of business,
But she shook it off, not ready to take risks.
She chose a boring life, no ups and downs, no fight.
Working all the time and no excite,
Home to office was her only trip,
Overnight work her only party.
Then there came a rumbling night,
That sent a shiver down my spine,
Frustrated and worn out she picked up the knife,
It drank all the blood beneath her veins and she died.
I opened my eyes as someone tucked at the hem of my sleeve,
A little girl was it that stood beside me.
"I can see you!" she cried as the others were about to leave.
"How?" I asked perplexed,
"Cause I live here to!" she clapped her hands and said.
I could not but smile, as the emotions in me revived,
That was my new world now,
The place where I had to thrive,
Tears filled my eyes and I hugged her and cried.
She held my hand and we rose aloft,
Nearer to the sky than the birds,
The bright light dimmed all the other view,
As I walked close to God's heus, to rest now in the world new.
- A.M.
