I believed that I was different
That I could think like no one else
That I could talk endlessly,
About demons and demigodsBut I'll tell you now:
My whole childhood was a big lie.
Like a fairy without wings,
Or a peach without any seeds inside,
I lived leaving holes in the universe
Holes from where darkness seeped out
Like truth.
Like pebbles that kept rolling
Against the hungry tides,
I rolled gathering no moss.
All my childhood I talked gibberish
On and off I thought like a maniac
But now I am silent
Silence is up to my neck
Thick, thick, thick.
I do not think
I am cold
Cold like a glass of water
It's wonderful to see how I
Insert myself between myself and myself.
I scratch like a cat
I gnaw like a mad dog
And lick my own blood
That runs through and through.
Now that I am old and dying
I can hear a scream
Is it a birth cry?
What is it that you find so fascinating
In being born?
It's violent, you see, our time's so cruel
With a goddamn baby screaming somewhere,
I feel there's a bloody birth in the air.
A birth that has once again
Invited the inevitability of
Death.
Bibek is an undergraduate student of Engineering at the Institute of Engineering, Thapathali Campus in Thapathali, Kathmandu.
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