TW- Mention of Trauma, Bullying, Death.

I wish I could walk with a bowl of oil
outside the lane, lanes that carry my name in the air,
I want to walk with the oil brimming to the edge of the utensil
and I wish no one to question my action-
no one to doubt if I could be able to keep walking
until the end of the lane and my life.

I may or may not outlive everyone,
I wish to die, if I will, a natural death,
I hope there be no stones and pellets from the bullet-
I hope there will be no words of shame
for walking with a bowl of patience.
I hope everyone to carry on with their lives and not wonder
the way I walk with a will carrying in my hand
to wilt not but become a wonderment-
a channel of wisdom as everyone else is.

Maybe I will shatter on the way
perhaps I will break to the point of no mending
I would still wish to walk and wither
I wish to own my defeat,
but no one to define it for me or force it down on me.

I wish to fail, if I will, all by myself.

Maybe my walk will be shocking for them;
it will be a walk of the gender I feel
but not the gender they force on me.
It will be my natural walk and not automated, or of pretense.

I wish to walk with pride
with a partner or partners or alone,
or with my family or mother or friends,
I wish they would not laugh
with the strange bowl in my hand
and not argue with my family for allowing me to be me
or shame me as a wag and all the rhyming they feel I am!

I may get tired on the way
maybe because of the questions of the society
or maybe because of the questions
they raised in me for my strangeness,

Perhaps I will wish to stop everything
and sleep a peaceful death…
but this, I don’t want to own,
this I want to shed off me and paint it
like the color red of blood on them
and call them the murderers, my killers,

It will be an institutional murder,
or a societal murder,
or an honor killing,
it will be something vital that won’t be reversing,
and for this, I want to hold them accountable.

I want to pass then
the weight of the bowl from me to them,
the wait I waited for freedom,
I hope they will learn in their captivations.