By Richa Singh
I did not do great things
nor did I sin gloriously.
I never prided like a king
or repented with fire.
I merely became an ordinary human without any desire.
I lived in footnotes
and breathed in margins
Just staying stuck between greatness and the grave.
I never loved enough to die from it,
never hated enough to kill for it.
So even history wouldn’t bother spitting on me.
Even my suffering was second rate,
hand-me-down heartbreak
by those who cried, wailed, begged and suffocated
and that too better, louder and first.
Everything in me was lukewarm,
like water that never quite made it to a boil.
There was no fall
Only the slow sag of my spine
No chains held me but I did not walk
No sin stained me yet I felt unclean.
I feared shame,
but earned nothing worth being ashamed of.
I feared judgment
but had no one who cared enough to judge.
I was ordinary and somehow that condemned me more than any crime.
I have only learned to live in impulses or paralysis
And now when my paralysis is dormant and I am dominant
The question isn’t “Do I choose?” but, ”What will I become when I do?”