fight to live.

Just as you are about to be born,
you fight to stay inside the warm, safe environment that you’ve been in the past nine months.

Then you fight with an invisible hand that keeps you from turning onto your belly.

You win.

You fight to stay awake,
as your mother’s loving embrace and pending drowsiness from your milk-filled tummy
lulls you to sleep.

You fight with your neighbours in the playground,
when they push you off your favourite swing.

You are too small, you lose the fight.

Then you fight somemore, this time, with your parents.
I don’t want to go to school, Amma, you say.
I want to stay with you and Thambudu at home.

You lose the fight. You go to school.

Major exams come by and you fight to choose your next school.
Your parents give in. They like your choice.

You fight a silent fight with your classmates.
You want them to accept you.
You long to hang out with them.

Alas, you realise, the fight was never meant to be with them.
You’ll have to take it up at home.

Major changes there.
And this time, you fight to let it all be the same.
Let it be normal, you pray.

You lose the fight realizing that things will never be the same and
Never have been normal.

You fight for more time, more freedom, more understanding.

But who are you fighting with, when there’s no one in the battlefield.

You choose yourself a path, and wish that everything will fall into place.

When did it ever, for you to believe that it will happen this time.
You chide yourself, but still wish that it will.

You fight for your choice. And you lose.
Lose you spirit, lose your strength.
Lose your choice.

You pick yourself up.
You realise the war will never end for you.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.
You see it and fight to let it be yours as it rightfully should be.

You fight to share this light with others.
Some accepting, others not.
Others who are important in your journey.
You fight harder.

It takes you completely by surprise how that fight ended.
Afterall, it has been quite some fights since you’ve won.

But elsewhere, the fight goes on.
A fight to protect what’s yours.
A fight to let go of hurt and mistrust.
A fight to save a burning bridge.

And you pause.

What are you fighting? And for what purpose?
Fight only to lose again?

No, my friend.

Walk away.
In time, the battlefield will be quiet.
No firing. No arrows. No bombs.

Walk away.
There's no room for reasons, for apologies.
Everyone wants changes.

Walk away.
There are other important battles to be fought.
There are other lands to conquer.

Walk away.
In due time, they will understand.
Understand what it is to be you.

You pray that they will.

And for the first time, you stop fighting.