Anything I start to love
hates me. My vote is one of them.
& any home that belongs to me
disowns me. My father’s home too.
It mocks me, I can’t read a change.
Because any letter in my memory
fades, my name too. And just like that,
it rains whenever I follow the queue
to cast another vote.

On the election day, I watched TV,
looking for the headline reading:
how the sun bakes a bread, & I saw
a woman that gave an asylum to
national anthem driving crowd of voters
to the arena where the sun eats
a fleshy face & I slept on the bed
lamenting that my hand refused to vote.

Today, a heart break is blasphemy.
Any time I remember my right
the innocence leaves me. I’m a saint.
& the day I read the constitution is the day
of my death. I believe when I die,
I might be born soon.
& still, someone might tell me,
my vote is used to mourn for sanctity.

I decided not to write for the sun again.
But I asked my hand to build
a life inside a basket of this country.
& today, any poem I long to write
rhymes with a song written at the
back of a ballot paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash