I'm a Coward

I've gone through life

Committing legalized crimes

Mirrors shiver at my sight

Sitting here, I'm contrite

Writing this poem to set the record right

i’ve overlooked cow vigilantes, when they butchered minorities

i’ve orchestrated gaslighting, when i made her doubt her own sanity

i’ve executed fatshaming, when I trolled fatkid Sonakshi 

I've seen women hurt and strike

mentally torment men & stood bemused

i’ve seen eve teasing & sexist jibes 

Instead of intervening, I turned gutless mute

for the longest time, 

i didn’t rise for mom against dad’s physical abuse

I can say I was too young to put up a fight

but that’s just a sissy excuse

in high school, i fell in love with this girl

but i didn’t reveal my heart to her

because i was too scared of the outcome

what if she didn’t reciprocate my love; 

what if she didn’t think I was her one.

I've lied & said 'I love you' not to break someone’s heart

I've said men & women are equal when I know equality is a farce

with all the honesty in me, I’ve also bribed

with all the compassion in me, i have stayed silent on genocide

I eat animals when i know it’s a grotesque crime

i’ve made love to someone’s girlfriend & kissed someone’s wife

i have threatened another human with violence

i’ve seen an injured cry & yell for help 

but i didn’t have the heart to get out of friend’s Benz

and left the man for dead

i didn’t fork out a dime for thousands that died in tsunami floods

i didn’t join protest in icy january for the fear of police’s cold water canons

i’ve called vegan activists nazi turds

when i know i’m the one

who deserves to be pooped on by the birds

i make jokes on hindus, christians, not muslims

because i’m a pansy avoiding getting lynched

everyday i suck on a branded 200-buck coffee 

when millions die of curable disease

because they don’t have 100 rupees 

i’ve shown no guts, stood with hands on butts

when i saw drunk punks treating girls in skirts as sluts

asking their rates & threatening them with rape

still I go to bed tucked under my velvet quilt 

when 9-year-olds are fucked by delinquent rapists

all the times i’ve been a coward to escape getting killed

i have also pulled off good shit

stayed true in relationships

withstood their mad fits & love them to bits

didn’t let ego screw my friendships

did what’s right even if i pissed the closest kin

never donated money into ramdev’s tins

thrown my trash in designated bins

never discriminated on gender or color of skin

didn’t add to human trash by having kids

I’m an olympic-level anti-nationalist

who openly calls out BJP for being fascist

who disses those practising eat-all-day navratra fasting

who reminds people believing in god is schizophrenic

but i know just because I don’t pour full cream milk on shiv lings

and don’t sell weed to kids

i don’t wash away my every day sins

i’m still a coward who isn’t giving enough back to this earth

who’s gotta raise the bar and give his all for what it’s worth

in the wall of humanity, there’s a big cavity

love and solidarity are replaced with bloodshed & insanity

technology is flying like ferrari

humanity is crashing to orthodoxy

i don’t know if anything I will do will fix the broken

but i gotta make a start by stop being a chicken

grow balls & battle out religion & Kim Jong-Un

And become a man who’s ready to burn his fears & turn his ambitions 

to light up a star to shine humanity’s darkened heavens

carve a world where animals & humans live as one 

and the universe recovers from Alzheimer's & remembers to fall in love