I never understood

Your endless calculations—

You added my future,

Subtracted my past.

Nor did I heed to

Your remarkably few words—

Our little, reserved communication.

We've always been apart—miles apart—

Like shores running downstream,

Looking at each other,

Furious and dubious

Of what life may turn out to be.

You wanted me to be a leaf insect

On a leaf-like china plate.

A sod of vomit lay all around.

I must feed on myself,

I must suck my own blood—

Else, I will die.

You wanted me to be a planthopper,

Unfed and starved—

An impolitic phylliidae,

Only to be dismantled

By the hands of Time,

Carried away by a line of ant-coolies,

Eaten and stored for winter.

I was a disturbance

In the mirrors of your Dreams.

My eyes were red and raw—spilling over.

You blinded me

With your lights of ignorance.

I tasted the malignancy

Of the leaf

With my blind eyes—

Effacing the memories of time—

To zeros, shutting my life

To nothing.

Father,

You weighed down

A Gestapo boot on my brain,

Killing my hope that had lived

Without sustenance.

Bibek Adhikari