Let me be YOU.

The photograph attached inspired me to write this one. I just could not NOT WRITE this.

Walking down the trail with your father, I saw you
Early summer it was, I faintly remember it,
Silently, I turned around 'cause as always I expected to be rebuked
But then I heard a sweet voice say 'Hey!' and saw a hand extended.

For someone who is treated as filth, unwanted
that moment was too spellbinding to react,
I stood frozen to my place, daunted
'He's just another reason for me to not bring you back in here', retorted your dad.

I was welcomed with anger and wails
the day I opened my eyes to the world,
My mother succumed to the child-birth pain
My father abandoned me on the road and left crossing a point of no return.

I grew up living on abuses and kicks
from everyone I ever came across,
To earn another sunrise of my life, I loaded bricks
and searched for left-overs in dustbin that people tossed.

My life sounds sure as Hell
but I still loved it for I had a friend, Paige
She lived nearby in a refugee camp, everyday she had a story to tell
But one night she was raped, killed and thrown away.

I was a little shaken, yet I drank in the tears and went to work
Loading bricks, I was distracted, as I couldn't just erase off her face,
I tumbled on something and fell, my employer in rage grabbed me by my shirt
spat in my face, threw me three feet away and yelled 'F*** off, you Disgrace'.

I donated blood to someone in need
they say the needle was contaminated,
the cause of the incurable flu, fever, aches and slight loss of memory
is something called HIV-AIDS.

There is someone from your town here
I narrated this all to him,
'cause I know not how to read or write
And I am sending along with this letter, a tin.

While you walked past me that day on the trail
You dropped something by mistake and forgot,
I am sending back your little bracelet
with memories of a life I got.

Don't write back to me
As I would be long gone by then,
I am glad out of everyone that hated my existence
You cared to ask and extend a hand, my friend.

Such an irony, life is
Although I never lived much of mine,
Still if ever I had a chance
I would want to be YOU for just a moment in time.

To know what care is
To know what a father's clasp feels like
To sit at home and taste the food mother makes
To embrace happiness,
Just for a while.

© 2011 Neha Choudhry