I am the product of sweet violence, like you.
I was a beloved of a king, like you.

My pride bears the pinch of now, like you.
My heart is an incurred mess, like you.

I am fox-devil wild, like you.
I will either harden or break, like you.

I am existing in the must-live universe, like you.
I am a shaman that always rises, like you.

I am a whispered meeting, like you.
I am a threnody always ignored, like you.

I am watching a loop of what has been, like you.
My saplings, I’ll never see them grow, like you.

Rishi Dastidar

(Previously published in Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words. Image by Alain Manesson Mallet.)

Rishi will be contributing a new piece to Others, an anthology celebrating how writers and writing can help us to see the world from other points of view. Please pledge your support now, and help us to raise funds against hatred.