This Swing.This Home.

I wish they could see me now
Imagine the way I’m feeling right now
Wonder why there is that hint of a smile on my face
Understand why I am biting my lower lip to keep it in place
And question why am standing in an empty park
Watching this breaking swing sway into its final dance
For a long time this swing was my home
The place I run to daily when they stoned me
For a long time this was my friend
In whose chain handles I knew I would find comfort till the end
She never rejected me.
Unlike them.
She never ripped my buttons or pushed me to the ground
Instead,she made room for me to hide my nakedness
She never questioned or judged me
She just welcomed. Just accepted me
And my God how I have cried and abused her kindness
How I have struck the sand with my angry foot and torn the grass out of the earth with my bare hands
All along yelling for an answer but I knew no one would respond
I was not like them in any respect
Not in appearance, not in speech and not in thinking
I could not do the things they did or go where they did
Because everything I possessed was not in accordance with what they deemed conventional
And so they ignored me
They fought me with their hands and wounded me with their words
They mocked me with their eyes demeaned me with their tone
They threw my peculiarity in my face and expected me to pick it up and limp back into a hole
But I did not. I always came here. I always came to this swing
And here,relying on the kindness of this creaking swing I began to nurse my deep wounds
Slowly turning the ulcer into a shallow cut.
Here in this dead park, I began to answer instead of questioning
Everyday, I wiped a little bit of my tears with a piece of the cloth they had torn from my back
I turned my heartbreaking melodies into beautiful song
I did not know at first what I sang. I just did so.
Until my song drew smiles and laughter I did no know I possessed out of me
I took a close look at all the things my oppressors said were wrong with me and told myself perfection was boring anyway
I was abnormal and wrong to them but I told myself they were abnormal because they were narrow minded and could not recognize unusual beauty when it stood in front of them.
I did not just decide this, I believed it wholeheartedly until nothing else would hold true.
And so every time they ignored me, I remembered my friend who had silently provided a home and a shoulder for me
Every time they fought me with their hands and wounded me with their words
My body and spirit resisted it because I knew they were untrue and born out of fear
And I could not allow someone’s deep seated fears to mould my destiny
Every time they mocked me with their eyes and demeaned me with their tone
I looked them right back in the eye and gifted them with a genuine smile
And responded with such courtesy,understanding that it was the way to defeat their purpose
And their purpose was to break me
But I chose to bend instead. Because in that position I could always leap back up
And walk back home with a smile,a song and a piece of cloth to dust of the remnants of their contempt.