The Weight of Noon

 

The sun is weight I cannot bear alone,

Beneath a tree that offers me no shade,

The noon falls down like some unspoken law,

And burns away the mercy from the day.

******

Dust clings to me like days that will not fade,

My saree hangs in threads of worn-out time,

My child lies pressed against my hollow chest,

Her ribs rise faint like songs that cannot form.

******

Too young for tears, too starved to even cry,

I hum a tune to quiet hunger’s call,

A fragile sound beneath a breaking breath,

While death and living blur inside my bones.

******

The footsteps pass, but none will ever stop,

A thousand lives move past and never see,

The city speaks in noise without a soul,

Yet leaves the likes of me to fade unseen.

******

What worth is pride when hunger takes its hold?

Who writes the rules for those with empty hands?

Does shame belong to bodies starved this thin,

Or only live in well-fed, distant lives?

******

Hunger burns slow, a pale unending fire,

A quiet thief that steals what hope remains,

It does not rage, but lingers deep and still,

A debt the flesh is forced to always pay.

******

Beside me lies a man drowned deep in drink,

Escaped into a world I’ll never know,

And in his pocket rests a crumpled note,

Ten rupees-thin as hope, yet all I have.

******

My hand begins to rise against my will,

A traitor caught between the wrong and need,

What sin is left when starving claims the soul?

What law survives when breath itself is priced?

******

But footsteps echo somewhere close behind,

And fear moves faster than my hunger’s cry,

I pull my trembling fingers back again,

As if some pride still asks me to remain.

******

I am a shadow drifting through their eyes,

A shape that blends with dust along the road,

A mother bound upon this strip of earth,

Where mercy rarely walks and never stays.

******

Still I cannot unsee that fragile note,

A paper bridge stretched thin to one more day,

It glows like sin and whispers faint like hope,

A borrowed chance wrapped tight in silent shame.

******

A plea is lodged like stone within my throat,

No voice remains to carry it aloud,

The world is loud, yet emptiness responds,

And teaches broken souls to not be heard.

******

So who will judge the choices that I make?

And who will bear the cost if I refuse?

If hunger bends the line of wrong and right,

Then tell me what is left for me to choose.

******

Between the woman that I was before,

And what I must become to see her live,

I feel myself begin to break apart,

Not choosing sin;but choosing to endure.

******

And still I hold her close against my skin,

Her fragile breath still warming what remains,

A love that starves yet never fades away,

Even as the world around us disappears.

******

The noon stands still, unyielding in its gaze,

The city moves, but never stops to see,

And somewhere lost between my shame and need,

I fade away,unseen, and silently.