Have you seen a rose
Without a thorn?
Or a road
Without a bump?
The light of a candle
In bright sunlight?
Or the stars
Without dusk?
Do not expect me
To shine and smile;
And hide my face
In veil of light;
Unless a rose
Is without a thorn-
I’ll keep my darkness
Awaiting dawn.
‘Cause this Rose,
she’s happily thorned.
And she walked;
And she strolled;
Atop the mountains,
Down the slope.
And she smiled,
As she glided-
Through the hills;
Amidst the Cattle.
And they whispered,
Spreading rumors-
About the lady,
Who comes and goes.
And she heard them,
Yet ignored;
Pretends oblivious,
To tarnished words.
Keeps on walking,
Breathes in nature-
Shakes head slightly,
At the ignorance of the world.
Still she keeps walking…
Someone’s lost a brother,
Another a son,
To the demon of suicide-
And the cycle goes on.
Defeat is not an option,
This battle can be won;
Statistics don’t define you,
An exception is what you are-
Don’t give in.. Fight on
A few hours passed by, the bulb of the operation room went off and the surgeon In his green scrubs came out. Walking steadily towards us, one look at his face and I knew something was wrong. He’d obviously learned to mask his expression, but his posture announced the gloomy news. The sloped shoulders and counted footsteps were a sure sign for disaster. Bad news was inevitable; the question was, how bad was the news he was about to break.
Let all be well, I prayed fervently despite the negative signs in front of me. My experience, escorting Summer’s mother to the hospital during her battle with cancer, taught me a few things about doctors. Merely from their gesture while approaching a patient, you could tell if it was going to be good news or bad news. With the doctor standing in front of me, the signs were screaming “Bad.”
He began with the usual, ‘I’m sorry’… Crap
Julie had passed on and the babies were to be kept in an incubator for a few days until they stabilized. Samuel blanked out after hearing Julie’s demise, he just stared into space, said nothing, did nothing.
“Sam?” “Sam,“ I whispered shaking him lightly at the shoulder.
He didn’t even shrug me off, just stood there with a blank expression on his face. A nurse came and showed us to a small pediatric room. It had baby pink and sky blue colors painted on alternate walls. Drawings of Mickey, Minnie, a baby in a crib and little stars-moon were plastered on the wall. We weren’t allowed to enter. In front of us was a huge rectangular see-through window. With my left arm firmly wrapped around Sam’s shoulders, peering through the window, two babies lay in an incubator. They were wearing the pink overalls I and Julie had picked out previously.
From my vantage point, I could see they were sleeping. Hearing a sniffle above me, I looked up to see tears streaming down Sam’s eyes as he saw his baby girls.
“It’s going to be okay,” was all I could say
I was relieved when I saw him cry because any emotion was better than no emotion.
Dear Mind,
I tried shutting you off for a long time, it worked but then, you kept coming back. Finally, I have given into your demands. You want me to finish what I started, fine! I’ll prove you wrong. And No, this time it’s going to be different. Not like the last three times I started writing a book and didn’t go through with it. This time, I’m going to finish what I started.
And you know what, it’s not about writing a perfect book, it’s more about practice. The art of writing every single day (okay, every week), pushing myself to post a new story no matter how bad you make me think it is. Experimenting with new techniques, description, narration, letter writing, dialogues and just to keep getting better.
By the way, I did finish the Writing 101 course. Now that I think about it, that was what motivated me to complete the story I started. And although you didn’t mince your words in reminding me time and time again how bad the storyline of ‘a Glimpse of Summer’ is- and even though I was temped to give up, I didn’t. Because dear mind, even you do not know the extent of my writing.
And so, I’m going to keep on writing badly till I get good at it. You may mock me, you may increase the volume of your screams but it won’t stop me, not anymore. There’s not a bone of doubt in me that my love for writing screams louder than any of your disbeliefs in me. Listening to that passion within me has been the greatest gift.
This is it; The end of a long tumultuous relationship with you dear mind. Unless the mumble that comes out of you screams confidence, I’m afraid we’ll have to part ways. Goodbye for now… It’s time to give in to my passion.
In Response to the Writing hub Challenge: Write a letter to yourself reflecting on who you are as a writer.
The amount of pain,
A soul carries-
Differs with every being;
Only he who made,
The Skin from dust-
Can truly tell the hidden.
With some it’s less,
With others more;
For some unbearable,
And they live not.
But the truth is that,
This pain within-
When masked and sealed,
Destroys the being.
So, Cry and scream
Pray, and let be;
This pain you feel,
Will pass you’ll see.
‘Cause to feel something,
Anything-
Beats a whole lot out
Of Feeling nothing.
If your heart has gone through any of these, then it definitely deserves a round of applause or a high Five. I don’t think there’s any other organ In the body strong enough to be broken so many times and yet still work. It’s like I said in my poem, the heart is the bravest thing.
Your mama was a strong woman,
She held down every force-
Reckoned it back with words so strong,
That males fell down in awe.
Your mother was so spirited,
It showed in every way-
She’d strut and speak with such passion,
All the crowds turn gay.
And so little girl, it’s always been
Your mama against the world-
But she didn’t care, her head up high-
She thwarted every thorn.
And when asked ‘why do you do that?’
She’d answer back and smile-
So my daughter can proudly say-
“My mama is a strong woman”
“I want to be like her”
Words couldn’t describe,
What you mean to me-
But words all I’ve got,
As a writer struggling within;
In a world full of blunder,
Unnecessary burden;
Clear out of a blue sky-
You rocked me through it.
A little smile-
A little hi-
I wouldn’t reply,
But still you tried.
And when i cried,
You’d ask me why;
I wouldn’t reply,
But it melted my heart
There’s infinity,
And there’s you and me;
But even infinity,
Cant amount what you mean to me.
Happy Birthday Sabeeha… I Love you beyond infinty
A little boy- as he roams the street,
Bare feet- scorching heat underneath;
He runs without shoes;
He don’t care,
about the 40 degrees radiating on them.
The teenagers, bathing in the stream-
Green with algae visible undersea;
Half naked, with bruises on their skin
Each scar, a story-
But they don’t care
Just glad to have a place to bath in.
The young mother- baby in her arm
Clothed in black, covered with a scarf
Hands protruded in search of alms
Heedful of pity looks, towards her child-
But she don’t care,
Will take it in;
As long as the baby gets money for milk.
These I saw on my way to school;
Riding a bus, overwhelmed with guilt
And compassion towards humanity;
A pair of slippers, a few pounds
Even a faint smile-
The difference it could bring about.
In the strides of his feet,
The protraction of her hands,
The ripples of the water,
As the teenagers splashed about;
I found something I wasn’t searching for-
I found humanity… or rather,
Humanity found me.
Randoms by a Random 