When I had eyes…

There was red on the sidewalk:
They told me it was paint.

A little girl on her way to school
Had spilled it on the ground.

I pointed to the middle of the road,
To broken pieces of glass.

A toy must have been thrown outside,
and a car run over it.

That smashed tiffin box of a little kid?
I looked up, they were glum.

My dad was carried away
His arms and legs were torn.

Wailing white vehicles, flashing
red lights; weeping around.

It’s all part of the drama, they said,
We enact in our lives.

Why is there a crowd? I asked,
They came to see the fun.

Can I see my Dad again?
My tears gave no reply.

When I was born I had eyes
I grew up to be blind.

Little kids I played with,
Each became one of them.

I closed my ears to the distant sounds
And heard nothing, no more.

The smells I lost over the years
when I became a woman.

They told me it was part of it,
The price of growing up.

The child was dead: and never shall rise,
A victim of mercy killing.