World ‘X’ Day

They give it one day in a year.
And for the rest, you struggle: yourself.

They give you one day to speak,
And when the day comes,
You expect to be heard,
You rehearse over and over,
Craft language carefully: to agitate, to assert, to express,
You seek audience, they demand compliance.

You open your mouth,
But hear their voices,
Disarrayed, in unison.

For every word that hurt me, put me down, I have a scar.
My soul, like a succulent, has evolved through experience,
I now have needle leaves to wear,
And yet, a bud, soon a flower, blossoms in my hair.

In the heat and dryness of the world’s winds,
My mind wanders, and is tended to by the flow of time, a drizzle of patience.

I wait.
I wait for the sea to dry,
I keep up hope till the sun shines.

I wait till the end of time’s garden,
I wait for someone to listen.

I wait, realizing that I am in a conversation of one. A dialogue with no one.

World ‘X’ Day

I pick up my comb and scissors,
Look in the mirror,
Look at the flower and hair,
I am my own gardener and my own barber.

Till when?
Till the same day next year, and the one after, and after.
Until…then.