I
He stood outside the ring, feeling uncertain,
Wondering if the encounter would hurt him.
He had been bruised before, left for dead,
Looking for something, finding someone else
instead.
There had been times when he felt empty,
Wandering dark alleys, lost and lonely.
There had been nothing to look forward to,
Nothing more he could possibly do.
Just lie back and wait for the end,
All was gone, nothing left to defend.
Somehow he made his unheralded comeback,
Managed to get a few mangled pieces back
on track.
Took the first steps back into reality,
Learnt again what it meant to be somebody.
A semblance of peace returned,
When he spoke, heads turned.
He still remembered the darkness, the despair,
The feeling that comes with no one to care.
He smiled, mocking the drudgery of it all,
The way no hands appeared when he began to
fall.
In the end, all that owned lay within him,
The will to survive another day, the will
to win.
He had to be wary, there could be no slip
ups this time,
Watched with cruel precision, every step
of the climb.
The road was always going to be uphill, and
that was okay,
So long as it got him through to the next
day.
He stood at the cross roads, wondering which
way to go,
One was barren and safe, the other he just
didn't know.
Nothing had bothered him till then,
Nothing after the happenings of way back
when.
The haunting resurfaced, in spurts of pain,
No. He couldn't face it again.
But this time had to be different, after
all he was,
He had come from a place that knows no laws.
Now he had an iron clad fist, a different
perspective,
A need to love, a reason to live.
As days turned into nights, and nights to
days,
It dawned on him that into those eyes he
could forever gaze.
Rahul Jadhav
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