Creepers among the herbs.

In few days from now,
I will grow.
Once in a month when I am sad
I do not.

Walking as milk spills from the container
where I could not contain myself,
I am not a shapeshifter
for I do not have a shape.
I grow into the air,
like air
but I can’t be inhaled.
Once in a month,
I am sad
as I choke on the laughter
blindly dying.

To the world, I become a land
partitioned into excellence and disgrace.
Who am I then
when I am not?
I become the sky in my dreams
my name remains grounded
like the earth.

If I speak like the ones who do not listen,
I become among them, a partner.
But when I vary a little
I am oppressed
and thrown out of the clan
like a weed in the wheat field.

I do not compete.
I am different,
I don’t need to.

In few days from now,
I will grow
like a laughter on your teeth
like a creeper among weeds.

If you give me a new name to identify,
remember only death can take away
my internal memory
growing up
like a child’s first day at school
– heavy but precious.

©Sameera Mansuri 2020.

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