Banira Dhakal
Childhood flees with giggles and glee.
It slips away in the blink of an eye.
You never knew you were in that blissful state until you looked back on your memories.
If all emotions were bundled in a single package, you would call it teenhood.
It gives you a golden ticket to fly to every concept.
Adulthood is waiting for you with its sharpened nails as you come out of the daze of teendom.
Adulthood gives you a way to explore your life.
You will struggle to get what you most desire though.
You will learn that life is not as beautiful as you believed.
When you become vibrant, with colorful memories of life and understand it somewhat,
When you can hardly get up and move another step, a step that feels too far to reach,
Then you’ve hit old age.
So, on being old,
When did you feel your life started?
Life starts when you breathe.
In every breath, your life thrives through the molecules changing in your body.
Don’t you believe it?
So, where is your little self who used to sit in your mother’s lap?
From birth to death, you are searching!
You search for acceptance, love, happiness, and peace.
But you never search for your breath.
Do you know?
You breathe happiness.
You breathe sadness.
You breathe disgust.
You breathe fear.
You breathe surprise.
You breathe anger.
You breathe shame.
You breathe pride.
You breathe excitement.
You breathe loneliness.
In breathing, you, who breathed the earlier breaths, have died,
And you, who is breathing the current breath, is living your life.
[Banira is a Nepali-speaking poet currently living in the US.]