WHAT’S MY MISTAKE?

WHAT’S MY MISTAKE?

I didn’t ask you for supplements,

yet you turned me into cuisine.

I didn’t ask you for a chamber,

yet you destroyed my residence.

I didn’t ask you for a cloak,

yet you tore my skin and wore my fur.

I didn’t ask you for anything —

does that give you the right to take my life too?

Did I ask you to hit us with vehicles?

Yet you walk free, without an FIR.

Did I ask you to break my legs?

Still, you drink me as soup.

Did I ask you to tie crackers around our necks

and laugh at our painful cries?

Did I ask you to kill my children

before my eyes —

while if I resist, it becomes an offence?

You ruthless demons commit every cruelty,

yet I —

born speaking a different language —

am called the mistake.

Or is being born

into this cruel human world

my only crime?

Give me space

in the womb of this world

to sleep —

and sleep eternally.

The poem speaks from the voice of voiceless animals subjected to human cruelty.