Once, I dreamed a dream like none other

Even if the dream would seem like any other

In my heart I knew it was quite well and true

And yet not too true that it be a lost wonder

–

I’d known it to be a world of many vices

Of slippery tongues, of bruising avarices

I too was tainted, but not entrenched or entangled

Perhaps just too naïve to see through the disguises

–

My dream, while true, knew it was tainted too

Its innocence couldn’t stand in a world of you

You who came and ripped it apart so brazenly

You who felt no shame, while I felt abused

–

My dream lay forgotten, as I remained comatose

A dream of your horrors began as the sun rose

My nights, sleepless and red rimmed, ghosted by

I gave up the ghost; reckoned you’d never feel remorse

–

I used to pray before God died as a folly of my past

Perhaps a part of me lamented but I was already too aghast

Now I could only see a world filled with the likes of you

You disabused my rosy view and gave me a cynical start

–

Yet every night I eluded sleep, for such were my dreams

A hardened soldier could weep hearing the silent screams

Of incredulity, of helplessness and agony, of vain pleading

As the sadistic pleasure in your eye would mockingly gleam

–

The others tried every other cure; law has always been invalid

And psychiatric help at the very best can be futile and insipid

It wasn’t until I met someone who’d met someone like you

That I felt I was being quite self-absorbed and painfully stupidz

–

I realized by wasting away life I was making a huge blunder

A victim I may be but you would win if I would surrender

My dream may have borne spite, but it was born incorruptible

It would withstand your terror, it would not be torn asunder

–

My glasses never were rosy, but selectively typhlotic

Before you came I was apathetic, when you left I was pathetic

It wasn’t until I met someone who’d met someone like you

That I realized I wanted to be that someone; someone empathetic

–

In a world filled with the likes of you, lone victim I cannot be

Yes, I’m a victim due to you, the law, the society, but never due me

I’m an atheist, I’m a believer, I’m a man, I’m a woman, I’m a survivor

You’re none; you’re a soulless monstrosity; and that’s all you’ll ever be

–

– Akanksha Gupta