Judgement Day
Kavya Mukhija
The first meeting is always uneasy.
Their eyes sweep through my body
washing away every sliver of dignity
that hung on the last string
like sea waves wash away footprints on the sand.
Were they ever there? You never know.
Their gaze lowers with every tick of the clock
and gets hooked into the buckles of my AFOs.
Trying to loosen the grip,
unclasp the velcro
and set my feet free.
Alas, they fail.
The straps are way too firm to be undone
by a flimsy, perplexed belief system trying to
unearth answers to questions that don’t exist.
Their tongue entangles itself in the already
entangled gauze of crisscrossing, countering ideas
and their words die a thousand deaths
covering their foreheads as extinguishing flatlines.
I sit there, smiling
trying to lock their eyes into mine,
pulling them into my world within
that is immaculately built with
jagged bricks of happiness, comfort and gratitude.
It is a world where the sun sprinkles its shine
when darkness seems too stifling
to survive- at odd hours, at my hours.
Where rainbows link the banks of a river,
ramps swirl around stairs,
where people wear smiles and wrap laughter with care
where living differently is not sulked upon
where normal is everyone’s unique baseline.
Alas, they fail to swim into my world
and we stay worlds apart,
yet very close.
The first hellos are never voiced
the judgements are upheld, nevertheless.
Nothing is disclosed by either
yet the two have inferred plenty already.
Kavya survives on tea, Arijit Singh songs and memes. Her friends call her a good listener, but she feels that she can also make you tumble on the floor with her hair-pulling puns. True to her name, she can be found writing poetry or calligraphy-ing on her phone. Apart from becoming a psychologist, she’s positive she can become a stand-down comic too! Rolling her wheelchair on ableists’ toes is her superpower.
