When I Bit My Tongue Part 1

WHEN I BIT MY TONGUE There was once a day, While I was walking, When I bit my tongue’s tip, Accidentally perhaps or, Did someone think of me? But the matter was, My teeth slipped, As I was biting through, A shelled peanut, Unstopped by my impatient jaw. The elders they say, “Ask the nearest one, Passing your way, The number they’ll give, Will correspond and tell, The beginning alphabet, Of thy minder’s name” A street urchin was just then, Mindlessly passing by, Tattered clothes and wary eyes, Naked soles and dirty hands So I called, “Boy a moment please”, Then asked, “Do you have a number for me?” Dumbfounded he looked up, From his wary stance, Wondering who this intruder is, To his unknown thoughts, Always drowned by the streets. “Zero, mister, the number is zero.” A strange answer if I might say, For the lack of quantity, But it was nonetheless a number, Though signifying absence, Like black is to colours. Piqued and nothing more, My curiosity got the better of me, I asked “But why, why that number?” He looked at me, deeply it seems, For someone so young, A liberal dose of being old, Engulfed him. World-weary, And tired of words. “Zero are the times I had comfort, In my sleep, there is often hunger, In my wakefulness, a drive to live, In my longings, a wanting for a family, In my dreams, a lack of chance, My clothes, flimsy and worn, My mind, a well of “whys?”, My blood, thirsty and angry, Unquenchable by this world”