Accomplished so much with little,
All worthless with this wound.
The wound which I created age 16,
The wound which bled age 27.
From México we left, but that
Wasn’t the first time I separated family.
Bautista, my brother and I, worked for nothing.
I had to leave the field, run, but he didn’t come.
I found a job which payed in River Spoon,
Simply brewed the morning elixir for the police station,
Simply meaningless, yet nothing to fear.
I arrived every dawn, I departed every dusk.
I tasked myself in the police,
Took up the Sheriff’s Badge once he retired.
A new day, a case like never before, or rather CASES.
A line of murders in this city.
Each of the four victims,
Five fingers I had, four fingers theirs.
Though they had five,
He, the murderer, stole the fifth.
The first murder, in a bar fight,
The second murder, in an argument,
The third murder, in the midst of a bribe,
The fourth murder, but not the finale, a personal grudge.
That night, I waited for the fifth.
But I missed it for a sight, 11 years old.
Through the gate, He and she left,
But the hair, his tone, mi hermano Bautista, my brother.
Should I follow, should I not?
Was not question.
My heart follows its,
Without caution, I surrender and follow Him.
Yet who was she?
I couldn’t help to wonder.
So much I wanted to say to Him,
Yet so little of Him I knew of what to say.
It was quite dark,
But where I could only see him, it was only darker.
Why couldn’t I see her,
She was no more.
She was the fifth murder,
He the lone murderer.
Bautista, for the first time in 11 years, I pronounced his name.
Alejandro, his first word.
“When did I teach you to kill, my brother?”
“When were you there, Alejandro?
Did I kill 11 years ago? Surely not?
But now, how are you a part of me? How, Alejandro?”
“Who taught you to kill?
It wasn’t yourself!”
“It was fate!
Fate which left me helpless, fate which left me choice-less.”
And then fate ended its story of mine,
With the physical pistol of His,
Which I never regarded to disband.
And my life was now finished. Y mi vida terminó.
I’m a young, 17-year old poet, drawing inspiration from the likes of Urdu masters Mirza Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz and famed American poet Emily Dickinson. Along with English, I usually write poems in Urdu and one can read some more of my verses at urduahsaas.wordpress.com