This isn’t us!

During which phase of evolution

did the blood in our veins get replaced with vitriol,

So much so that if a mosquito bites and we scratch,

what we spill is black venom,

As if it’s all we are left with

to spare, to share,

from the vastness we have acquired.

In which moment of our endless uncovering

did we become aliens to our quintessence?

NO. THIS ISN’T US.

This isn’t what our mothers had conceived us to be,

These vampires aren’t what they had borne in their bellies.

This putrid pound of flesh, this shame in disguise.

They didn’t feed us decay when as foetuses we lay,

They didn’t tell us rotten tales

when as children we played,

We turned their lifeblood and love

into streams of molten hate,

We turned their fairy tales

into our own horror stories.

When did we turn our mothers’ dreams

into bone-chilling nightmares?

When in the blessed name did we become

this baleful ignominy?

In which mortal language shall we apologize

for the blot we brought to their sacred sacs?

How on earth, and thereafter,

shall we atone for our filial impiety?

How?

#Poetry