He dreamt.
For only there
He could walk.
Midwives will tell you tales
Of rows of babies
Like lined potatoes
Yet each one smiled different
And cried so too
Yet at the age of 4
The potatoes are grouped together
Some round ones
Some oval ones
One with legs and smiling faces
Go to big schools
While the ones with none
Go places we don’t know
Or don’t try to know
Is childhood a seesaw
Where unable to do
Weighs you down
And you see the other child
Gazing at the sky
While you gaze at him gazing
Is childhood a seesaw
where to see the skies
you are judged by your flailing legs
not the eyes that see
yet somehow this seesaw does magic
for when a girl who can’t sing comes
she can see the sky
her voice doesn’t fail her like your legs do
and then a boy comes
who can’t draw
yet his hands let him to see the sky
he talked to his legs
with care and love
with bleeding eyes of tears
and his working hands begging
“move please” he cried,
“just once”
“I want to see the sky”
He lay awake at night thinking
Thinking if when he prays earnestly
Would he be able to dream what he wants
He dreamt
For only there
He could walk
And maybe then
The seesaw will take him high
To see the sky
And we think
Why in a world with the sky so wide
A child needs to walk to see it
Yet he never realised that
No matter how his legs were
He could always paint his own damn sky
And it doesn’t have to be blue
It could be yellow and red
And different
Different
Yet his mind blossoming
With a new sky everyday
Different
Yet equal.
Nandhitha Babuji is a 18-year-old aspiring poet from Tamil Nadu, passionate about using her words to show solidarity against children’s issues.
