We Are Never Whole

We are never whole
we're born incomplete --
naive, suspicious, trusting, selfish, hungry, afraid
dependent on the mercies of others
being made everyday
in their multiple shapes and shadows, 
a loosely knotted ball of
myriad prejudices, anxieties, mixed memories
and learning to call it our "selves"

We spend our middle years
trying to be whole 'again'
chasing a delusion
of constructed realities
unrequited desires
abandoned dreams
gather memories, 
as if they'll last us a lifetime
memories that start changing
the moment they're born
like us

The wisdom that we think
we get, as we grow old
is a piecemeal, primal understanding
of our incompleteness
our bone deep acceptance
that we are a constantly changing part
of a mythical whole -- 
      not just a larger whole of another
      evolving incompleteness, 
      we call humanity, 
      fractured into teeny tiny shards
but a whole that we are
in what we leave behind
on the merciless canvas of time --
as we shed memories
lose faculties and people
integral to our
very idea of ourself

We're lucky
if we can feel whole
looking back at the million holes
in our tattered devolving self
ready to be one
with the larger void 
of completeness ... 

Which one are you?

Only a few speak up, now
many choosing to stay silent
while most justify
and some speak, just to go silent

A time will come
when those staying silent
will join those who justify,
those who justify
will turn into killers,
while the killers
giddy with joy
will dance on the dead bodies,
and will finish off those
who burst into tears
after witnessing it –
cry in horror, or
shiver in terror –
and will occupy 
all of the spaces

That is why 
the tribe of those who speak up
should never shrink
and of those who stay silent 
should never grow

Which one are you?
You decide.


(A loose translation of Vishnu Nagar's poem - Kinme ho Tum? )