The next three in the series

 Guilt Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry prompt challenge January Sixteenth by Dr. Koshy AV

When the whole world is against you

don't feel any guilt

They are ignorant

The loss is theirs

Pain January 15th Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry challenge prompt by Dr. Koshy AV

We go through various stages of pain

The first cry is of pain at

being ejected from the womb

and being slapped on the buttocks by the doctor

to make one cry if one does not

as that is not good

We do not remember it

mercifully

but we do, unconsciously

Then there is the pain of not any longer

being fed the breast

and of finding your parents are not gods

though perhaps closer than it to than other humans

yet only or most in their treatment of you

Some have no such luck but more pain

There is the pain of being an infant

and a child

then the pain of being young

of being unloved

or unaccepted

of not being able to belong

non-belonging

of insult and injury

wound and wear and tear

of hurt and harm

of suffering

the pain of school

and college

or university

of being always in the minority

refusing to back down or give up

fighting to be equal

and get others to give you the space of equity

the pain of initiation

of growing up

of job and slavery and career

of always having to battle to survive

with each life being a war field - fought solo

of unrequited love

of lost love

of illness and disease

and on the way

the terrible, rending pain of meeting death for the first time

the horrible pain of losing loved ones

the pain of being at the receiving end

of injustice meted out to you

of being taken for a ride

of no one caring, no one bothered

the pain of being always under pressure in the world

to survive and then the pains of mistakes

and wrongs

done

an endless litany of pains

till you finally come one day to stop

counting the pains

as you get they are endless

and concentrate instead on

panacea

how pain makes you stronger

and all have it

and lessening it is the only way forward

facing it

or driving it back

to where it becomes only what it's supposed to

pain that makes you stronger each time

and pain that makes you learn to be better

In the end, your scars proclaim you

lived and thrived and even gave

but do not define you

Pain becomes an anodyne

Free from its pain your new life begins

My skin Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry challenge January 14, 2022, poem by Dr. Koshy AV

My skin

I have worn various skins down the years

Soft as a baby's

Hard as a rhino's

Sunlight as a wrapper

Oil as a healer

Which one should I claim,

remember?

Skin as covering

or skin as dry, and (un-) peeling?

(Skin burning and cracking, crackling in concentration camps,

the skin of history?)

Bare skin or skin as a 'hide'?

The colour of it or its feel or taste

and touch, and its metaphoric, metonymic scales?