When the Dark Enfolds

For Nayanika, Sahar and Ananya

I remember when the light when out

in the middle of the day

and the hot sun sent chills down my spine.

I remember being too lonely to want a friend

and too sad even to cry.

I remember when the night was less dark than

what filled me inside.

And I remember when the shadows overwhelmed me

enough to want to die.

And yet I remember how there was always that illusive light

waiting somewhere beyond my reach.

When it took every ounce of strength to keep searching

for that passage seemingly leading nowhere.

And somewhere from the great beyond voices called

out to me, unheeded, unacknowledged, undermined

by the deep dark pressing against my forehead.

And yet, someplace buried deep there was still the will,

the hope, the vision of what could be.

If only I could touch its feathery wings and take flight

out of the awesome silence

the stillness of being.

And when the dark enfolded me I found

a place to hide.

Tears, fears and dreadful years were washed

away by the callous tide.

Desultory, disconnected, disenchanted stories

interrupted by flashing migraine lights.

Clinging to straws of hope in the midst

of soul-numbing fights.

The ragged pain of breathing

through broken ribs.

The numbing of arms when your

spine is hit.

But it was no worse than the pain

of being born, drawn out by a vestige

of a chance you take in seizing the moment.

The moment when trapped within those

impenetrable walls, of a mind too destroyed by

its own capacity to self-destruct, you reach for the last straw

And pull yourself out of the abyss

of detached despair.

For, sometimes, just one straw is enough

to craft a set of wings.