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Writer's pictureKeerthana Venkatesh

The Cry of the Children

By Keerthana Venkatesh

Contributing Author for Spark Igniting Minds


PART (1)

Bang! I rolled down the road

With the shrieking- panicking crowd.

To the hospital I was carried

And laid with my head, bruised.

I lay unconscious when my skin was pierced

With the needle which gave me blood.


Home I returned, six days later.

As I watched the chill winter

I felt my throat sore and body afire.

Three days I slept feeling weak

And learnt that life would now retreat

‘cos the blood that saved my life

contained it’s end in it.


I now suffer, counting minutes

As life is breaking into bits and pieces.


The infected blood of a man flows

all through my interiors:

killing me day by day

carrying my soul far away.


Why is it I to face this end

And neglected by every friend?


PART (2)

Here I crouch in the warm world

Of my mother’s womb.

But I know the fate I shall

Face in a few afternoons.

The world shall have me

for a few days;

and for no fault of mine

my end I shall face.


Ma suffers too

Crying with pain-

Not of her death

But of my ill- fate.

She prays that I never

Come out with this fever.

She realizes her fault

for having borne me at all.


I shall face death

Less than walking the earth a year.

Oh! What a life I shall face.

Is this after all my fate?


PART (3)

Here I lie on my bed of death

Thinking of the dreadful night-

For a moment of bliss I slept

Beside a harlot for a price

I never can repay. For it has

Costed me my twenty years of life.


People try to cheer me up

With completely withdrawn hope.

I smile back- dejected,

with exhausting force.


The few moments of in-experienced bliss

Has now shattered me to pieces.


My life shall pay for my unloyalty

to my loving family.


PART (4)

Off I ran with my friend

to print those fancy designs

on my legs and hands.


Little did we know that it

costed more than we expected.

So we shared the same pricker

Without the slightest realisation.


Years trod and the designs faded;

taking our life along with it.

Had we been more cautious

we could have saved the illness.


Why don’t we get another chance

to prove our ignorance?

Is death the only punishment

for our foolishness?


(Featured Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay)


About the Author

Keerthana Venkatesh is a passionate writer with a penchant for positivism via thoughts, actions and alternative therapies.

She has worked on the editorial of some of India’s biggest media houses and as content management and marketing head in various corporates.

An avid traveler and a doting mother, she finds inspiration and the energy of positivism through places, people and her daughter which she showcases in her blog titled "This Short Story"!

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