The Color of Cotton Balls

Cotton balls 

took seed,

colors I begin to doubt 

it casts my shroud.

My first touch

the doctors and nurse's gown, 

tucked in my swaddle 

besides my mother's cot.

Even the birth certificate 

was white, 

pristine like first snow.

The first birthday cake

was the gold pot 

at the end of my rainbow,

Soon, by now the shades 

were bright, as

the crayon box harmonized my class.

The cotton turned into 

Pretty frocks and shirts,

The shades did take a split 

a gender bias they flirted.

While I was still adding my inches,

the fluffy boll had bifurcated,

at puberty my identity wrapped,

My dastaar, his dhoti,

her sari or hijab,

speak out their diversions,

I see spokes of a splendid diversity,

The wheels of our democracy spun 

out of the same cotton hub.

The world now so divided, 

the purity of the whiteness 

shredded by the dyes,

and looms mere spectators 

a lie to our creator.

I am singled out 

for my garb and hues,

the common red of blood

and species gene no ruse,

Even the cotton plantations 

raise a cry,

the mayhem on the streets 

they deny.

Only ends in our death.

The coffin or pyre

brings me back to my birth,

The pall or kafan

as white and stark; 

Cotton bolls 

end my story 

as all my colours melt 

into the oblivion of its whiteness.