Komal Walimbe Poet Free verse

The Kurta

She worked the fields
from the first light of morning,
until the day forgot to shine.
Her feet knew the language of earth,
Her weathered hands bore witness to all that life was worth.

Work was not just what she did.
It was what life asked of her.

She worked
so there would be food on the table,
so her children could grow,
so they could study,
And build homes of their own.

And somewhere between
raising children,
Building a home,
working the fields,
and carrying everyone else's dreams,
she forgot to want her own.

Then today,
at sixty-five,
she wore a simple kurta.

Just a kurta.
A plain white kurta with blue flowers prettily decorated.

Something so ordinary
Seemed a revelation to her

But she looked at herself
and her eyes lit up.

And for a moment,
the years disappeared.

The tiredness left her face.
The wrinkles became softer.

And I saw her.

Not the aunt I have always known.
Not the mother.
Not the wife.
Not the woman in the fields.

I saw a little girl.

A little girl
who never really got to be one.

A girl who grew up knowing hunger
before she knew dreams.
A girl who learned responsibility
before she learned freedom.

And perhaps that is what broke my heart the most

that it took sixty-five years
for that little girl
to finally do something
just for herself.

Just a woman
standing in front of a mirror,
wearing something she liked,
smiling at the girl
she had carried silently
all these years.

She is my aunt.

But today,
I realised she was a girl first.

And maybe that's the thing
we forget about the women
who raise us,

before they became mothers,
wives,
aunts,
grandmothers,
before their hands became rough
and their backs grew tired,

they were little girls too.

Girls with colours they loved,
clothes they wanted to wear,
places they wanted to see,
and dreams that seemed like a privilege.

Today,
she didn't just wear a kurta.

She wore, for the first time,
a small piece of the life
she should have had all along.

And when I looked into her eyes,
I didn't see sixty-five years.

I saw a little girl
Who just learned she could fly all along.

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