‘Our Handicap’

By Protiti Rasnaha Kamal

The limp of a man is hard to ignore.
Imagine if he had a crutch, his wing?
If his dreams didn’t soar
but he did,
how great that would be?

Such a man and I were friends a summer ago,
His limp and my lisp, were one and the same.
He walked along the streets writing with his feet,
I paced on streets as our spoken words stood still.

I was his wing, for a day or two perhaps.
I made his curse my burden
But I had to leave, his sorry pocket
behind,
Because mine now had treasures,
A wing of a different kind.

So I flew away, in the arms of clouds
Bank notes swirled too, as if in a race,
With birds, with flies – with the breeze and its sway
I left the man long ago, he has given up walking,
Now, he traces his steps on a piece of paper,
the same piece where I used to carry my lisp.

(Protiti Rasnaha Kamal was born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is a recent graduate of Mount Holyoke College,Massachusetts, USA where she studied Neuroscience. Her writings have been published in Dhaka Tribune and The Daily Observer.)