Vast is the stretch of blue, infinite, high
Heaven can wait; I’m only watching the sky.
A respite from my exhausting counting,
I lay envious of its eternal never-ending.
Always wishing for inexplicable magic to never meet life’s rough,
Only now do I realize to live is a miracle enough.
I’m on a stage that seems not worth the attention of the mind
For they all wear blindfolds to not see pain of any kind.
Therein, no empathy for the suffering, no knowledge of selfless joy,
A fabricated, ignorant world is easier to deploy.
Reluctant helping hands, generosity kept in their shadow.
Even though the will to save is throbbing in their marrow.
I lay here waiting; I refuse to submit to this sort of end,
When in the veins of my fellow men, lays a ruby for life to extend.
I lay hopeful in the hopeless though my days are numbered in red.
Praying that they remember, what we do not do is what we will regret.
Wayomika Jones Nongrum
(This poem won the first prize at the Inter-College Self-composed Poetry Competition organised by Meghalaya AIDS Control Society on June 12 to mark World Blood Donor Day)
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