When I Try To Cry

There are times when a man like me
Wants to cry like a child
But for the barren pits of tears and
Crumbling pebbles of bones
Wetting my eyes becomes no lesser task
Than kneading gravels to bake a bread

I've evolved from flesh to stone
A walking statue weathered by life
What more could I do for the little girl
Who looks for food in a heap of garbage
While a skeletal dog barks at her with
Sound of saw on a fallen tree

They declared my blood has sugar in excess
Why then my heart is bitter I wonder
When I see a dead child
Wheeled away to the morgue
Why can't I feel the pain even as I hear
A baby's cry from the maternity ward

Loneliness swallows me tonight
I bend my limbs on the bed
Like a fetus in a womb and I hear a faraway voice
Hushing me through a severed umbilical cord and
I feel the warmth of familiar hands on my cheeks
And my eyelids begin to burn in gentle flames

When I try to cry
Copyright © | Year Posted 2018

Poem

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Palli Avatar
December 3, 2018 at 10:50 AM
Powerful emotional write, Ibohal. Can feel and relate to the suffering.
Kshetrimayum Avatar
December 3, 2018 at 11:13 AM
Thank you Susan. I am grateful for your inspiring words.
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