A poignant poem, by Shivani, about crime against children. For the two children, an escape from home was a journey from the frying pan to the fire. An exclusive for Different Truths.

Just a normal day it seemed,
Two innocent children in a hut,
Their mother, grievous, tired, would cover her wounds with a smile,
Wounds? From a father who could not stop drinking,
From a husband, who was filled with rage and desire.
She told the children to run away,
So that they have a future,
Away from all the men who are called her ‘gifts’ of fate,
Men, who scream and raise their hands,
Who grew up looking at their fathers raising their hands!
 
“Take this money and go,” she whispers one night,
While her husband is sleeping on the bedside,
They look at her with their innocent eyes,
That conveyed sympathy,
A pain so deep,
‘What will they make of themselves?’, she wonders,
And tells them to never come back.
 
Just a normal day it seemed,
They ran off,
Two children in an abandoned bus,
Too ignored to be seen,
Too frail to walk it seemed,
Caught sight of one of their father’s known.
With a kind tone and alluring eyes,
He offered them shelter for a few days.
Driving to a place unknown,
Dark and dingy,
They caught sight of an abandoned room,
Fascinated they were,
By the lights that flickered from within.
The neon blues, greens and pink,
There were strange smells and voices unheard,
“Where are we?” one of them asked with curious eyes,
“At a Party!”, the man replied.
 
Just a normal night it seemed,
When we were sleeping in our luxurious abodes,
Many men,
Huge, sweaty, beast-like,
Came out of the neon lights and grabbed these children,
Circled with strangeness, they cried, they wailed, oh they were children!
The men, hooted and lingered around,
Their tongues ran foul,
Some were in shorts, drunken, stoned,
With women hanging from each of their shoulders,
Like objects, like monkeys, dancing to their tune, their commands.
Some of them,
Reminded the children of their mother.
 
The same night,
These children were looted and harassed,
Their flesh,
Became a battlefield of all the lives won and lost,
The men, ripped their lives apart in a second,
Ravaged, their skin, their innards,
The children bit their sweaty forearms, and screamed,
The more they wailed, the more they were teased.
With their deep breaths and loud grunts, they finished,
The worlds of the children as a pleasure to theirs.
Of course, they did not forget to pay,
To the owner with the alluring eyes,
Hefty amounts, he wanted,
Because the children were on ‘special demand’,
Counting the notes between his fingers he gestured two of his men to take them away,
So, they picked them up,
Two young bodies,
Harassed and lifeless,
Their eyes,
Filled with terror, of a world that seemed so unfamiliar,
With tears, like their mother’s,
Grievous and tired.
 
The two men,
Put them in the backseat of the car,
Drove to a forest unknown.
In pain, they could not even utter a word,
The men twisted a rope around their fragile necks,
And hung them by a tree,
And drove off, to have more monkeys do tricks for them.
Their bodies,
Rag doll-like, flailing limbs and failing breaths,
Dirt settled upon their faces,
And voices lived in their minds,
Until,
A blue shade started peeping through their skin,
Slipping through all their veins,
And their bodies grew cold,
And blood from the wounds, dripped in the dark beneath.
(…)
 
You read it in the newspaper the next day,
And maybe said a little prayer,
You’re too busy to care,
And you say to yourself, “these things happen”,
Which alleviates the anger you should feel,
And you try to distract yourself from the idea,
Gratitude takes over you and you learn to appreciate the life you have.
You don’t want to think of it anymore,
So, you pick up a magazine instead,
The same way you will read your children a bedtime story,
Of magical lands, and glittered fantasies,
Seeing the world through their eyes, they will smile at you,
You will too,
But they will never know.

Visual by Different Truths

Shivani Singh

Shivani Singh is a 15-year-old student, currently studying in Delhi in 11th grade. She is an alumnus of Mayo College Girls’ School. She composes poems, prose, articles, short stories and more. She is also passionate about instrumental music and singing. She published her first poetry book, ‘The Divine Reality’, at the age of 14 . She aspires to become an architect and a bestselling author.