Entendre

7.1: Steel Grey

Endlessly, I thought to myself
if losing a part of my vision
was all worth it in the end.
In the hospital, I thought.

Was there a world beyond
this pollution of battles
or struggles for dominance?
I thought—maybe there was.

In the small town that I lived,
fights between children
to prove their strength
was rather common.

Children died, children survived.
Even with that, the cycle went on.
Who was stronger? Who was weaker?
I was none between the two.

I was a simple spectator.
I watched from the windowsill
as my mother cooked breakfast.
Was that all there was to it?

One day, that thought
bugged me endlessly
as I glanced outside
the windowsill.

There, I saw a little girl
being beaten to death
by a bunch of older children.
'How heartless', I thought.

Mother cooked for lunchtime
and I wondered once more
'Was this all there was to it?'
I couldn't help but disagree.

They say that sacrifices
or a slight scar is a proof
of a past worth mentioning.
Maybe it is, but not definitely.

This eye that I lost,
was on the day that
Mother left the knife
on the table by accident.

That time too, I looked
outside the windowsill
that will soon be a witness
to my childish tomfoolery.

Outside, the children had
beaten a helpless little boy
to death. Kicking, punching,
hitting—this was all they did.

Mother left our dinner to simmer,
and the smell of the meat's blood
lingered on the air as I witnessed
the bloodshed and violence outside.

'Is this really it?' I asked myself.
'I don't think it is.' I answered.
This world that competes for who is
stronger or weaker... I must end it.

Taking the knife on the table, I ran
to the outside world that I've never seen.
'It is safe on the inside', Mother told me,
but playing it safe has never been fun.

Adrenaline rushing in my body,
I fought the stronger children,
for it is the weak that
I shall protect with my life.

Unexperienced, I lost.
That was pretty evident,
considering as to how I was
only a powerless child then.

But it was not only my pride
that I lost that day.
Half of my world has been
taken with one stab.

And I sat on a gurney,
thinking to myself
as I looked outside the window,
'Was it worth losing a part of my world?'

With a whisper, I told myself
that it was—it was all worth it.
Because then I knew that
I protected someone and they lived.

After all, the weak have to be
protected in the beginning
for them to be strong enough
to stand on their own.