Applied rouge on the cheeks
Tied a glittering necklace round the neck
Putting heavy makeup,
Over the stubble on her shaven chin,
She looked into the mirror
Through its cracks, saw a million bits of her/him
Those images sneering at each other
She felt trapped in a wrong body,
With its contours n’ longings mismatched

“Where do I belong”?
“Where do I fit”?

These questions plague her incessant
A rough stone with sharp edges
Too hard to be chipped down
Cast aside by the mason
That can never go into the making of a Cathedral

She walks around in haze
Life seems a twisted maze
Each time she tries to claw her way
She sees only walls that hems her in
Before her lingers the stygian mist
Phantoms of darkness surround her

The winds of change swiftly blow
Seasons come and go

But she is tied down in her chains
An anomaly of creation
A curse and a taboo
Swallowing stigma and abuse
Each day waking up with a start
Knowing that she is neither a woman nor a man
But a non binary... an accursed TRANSGENDER
Inviting snide looks
And sniggers from onlookers

People call her a ******
One divided between the selves
A hapless denizen of an inhospitable world
Disowned even by parents

Though flawed and far from perfect
She is human, one of a kind
And needs to be seen through the eyes of God!

Sometime after mid night, it had rained
Putting out summer’s sultry heat
The sky had its face washed clean
And wiped the grime off Earth’s soiled feet

The dawn is quietly breaking
Night lights still glimmer here and there
The blue firmament remains cloudless
And cool is the mild blowing air

The sleeping town is slowly waking up
And at this transitional point
I look out into the street
To see a sight that shall never disappoint

Along the road moves one, ragged and withered
His discolored white hair left unkempt
With hunch back and drooping shoulders
The marks Time has left of the hard years spent

Though age has drained his life sap away
He has a firm resolve never to beg
His frail body supported on a stick
Serves as a veritable third leg

With his staff, he perseveringly stirs
Every heap of abandoned *******
Indiscriminately piled on either side of the road
Hunting for trinkets lying hidden in the trash

A rag picker with a sack on his back
Picking up today’s treasure
From yesterday’s discarded trash
Things, for him ‘priceless’ beyond measure

With complaints none
He faces life and its trials
Never losing the glitter in his eyes
Though a loner in life’s dark isles

I ask myself, why every day
I routinely look for this man who limps along
And I get a quick answer
‘He helps you turn your sobs into a song’