Listening to a Stolen innocency

Dr Sudhansu Dash

I wake up every morning

Before the sun wakes up

Just to be treated unfairly

And lock my tears

Not allowed to shed from my empty eyes.

In my long walk,

Carrying plenty of hunger in an stomach

I keep my suffering private to all.

I know how to listen the song of the cuckoo

But gaze lonely at the children’s park.

Nobody feels my feelings

Bother not what I have to say

I hammer the stones in my soft palms

But cannot hammer the stony hearts of man.

I am to pretend

Everything is fine.

You get paid with the tears I have shed.

So much shattered my voice

Unheard to anybody else.

What I say is just a noise for you.

My sick longs cannot breath

Under the wild eyes of my master

The shrunken eyes are tired of crying

The sick heart is tired of dying.

Just remember!

You were a child once too.

All my gathered dreams are locked in your iron doors

Full of tears my eyes are

I beg, ’Help me out’

Though I am quiet

My heart silently shouts.

Tears go unseen, voices go unheard

My blood of my scared soft palms quenches your thirst.

You leave me with tearful eyes, terrified faces and shattered dreams

To make all my dreams a history.