Shame - Poem by Sukasah Syahdan

You often look at her at some nights, when she is asleep so sound so tight. You wonder how come a child innocent can drive a grown up mad and impatient. Everything comes with a price, and what a tag for this one.

Like last night when sleep crawled like a snail, a new day slipped in very quickly. A hung mirror reflected an image of someone too familiar: the face of an exhausted parent who could have done better than hurting the ego of his own God-sent china.

With all the foolishness you could muster you asked yourself what went wrong with all those years of learning, of education, of breathing, of all the travelling to faraway lands, of the talking with wisest tongues, of the listening to wisest words of wisdoms!

Morning finally arrived, just to discover your regret and how you wished to play back time or reset it altogether.

Yet nothing was ever the same; you just hoped the damage was a mendable one. As the sun rose and fresh air entered the bedroom with birds chirping outside, your cracked china woke up. Her angelic face, she did not care. Her wings crippled, she did not notice. Instead she sought the remains of compassion in the pair of eyes looking so unsightly last night.

So you gave her the best of hug. Or maybe you didn’t. She said sorry, when you should have been the one to employ the word. Neither fully understood why adults behaved the way they did.

(25 July 2005)