The Pauper’s Patronage

From a childhood scourged by the atrocities of
Paucity,
I could carry none but grumpiness with me into,
Adulthood,
My soul, failing to comply with the impending servitude,
Nudged to cross the threshold of my miniscule abode,
Just when I was about to consummate marriage.
So there was I, a destitute,
But obstinate enough, not to be a
Vagrant,
Since forfeiture dared not touch me,
‘twas hard to pacify my gurgling stomach
And entwining intestine.
Within weeks my tenacious mind was cajoled,
Cajoled so tactfully that I was permissible to
Rent my womb.
Reminiscences are fresh,
How I as a scrawny, famished girl
Lay on the hospital bed,
My heart emanating fortitude and preparedness,
To feed life into a body
How the ecstatic anticipation of ,
Seeing a life come out of me,
Erased the inconsolable tales from ,
The previous pages of my book.
How I braved labor,
Like a mighty soldier,
And how before opening my worn out eyes to console,
The crying baby,
It was handed over to its legal parents,
IT, because I never got an opportunity,
To know,
To know if it was he or she,
To cuddle it in my arms,
To feel its tiny fingers clasping mine,
To sing my lullabies to it.
The severing of ties with a being,
I was never attached to,
Tightened my muscles, my veins throbbed,
My heart galloped.
At the centre of an emotional vortex,
I grappled,
Grappled until my impetuous mind,
Gave in to another such struggle,
Partly to cope with the agony and,
Partly to experience the transient pleasure again.
Suddenly my supercilious soul became,
A slave of my scruples.
I got enticed into a labyrinth,
Where I still scuffle with myself.
Scuffle each time I see,
My uterus stop weeping,
Prophesying the emergence of new life,
Scuffle each time I fail to relish,
The nuances of the life that comes out of me,
Scuffle each time I handle the bundle of joy to others,
I am in dire need of,
Scuffle each time I feel like a sculptor,
Never acknowledged.
The clattering of weapons of my ,
Ethical conflict,
Distorts my peace,
As if my existence gets questioned in an audacious tone,
As if a wild beast runs inside me,
As if I am the keeper of an orchard,
Whose fruits I’m not destined to taste.
Nevertheless, I don’t let the clay pan of hope,
Left in me to dry,
Envisaging a fruit of my orchard,
To quench my abiding thirst with the residual drops,
Of its juice.

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